Jessie Lau explores local reporting on China’s ‘Mask Park Incident’—and what it reveals about the media, state narratives, and sexual exploitation, both online and off
“They might be hidden somewhere inside the carriage of your train during an early morning commute, or within the walls of your shopping mall changing room. They could also be tucked away in the corners of buildings, like the ones on your sprawling university campus. These spy cameras—disguised as everyday objects like screws, electrical outlets or even bottles of toilet cleaner—are everywhere, and they’re secretly capturing intimate moments of countless women across China, without their consent. The sexually explicit content, recently flooding the internet and shared on encrypted platforms, are being consumed and exchanged by hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes who make up the country’s massive 偷拍黑色产业 Tōupāi hēisè chǎnyè (“black candid filming industry”) transforming women into sexual commodities for male consumption.”
These are the striking opening lines that broke the story of the “MaskPark” incident, translated and paraphrased from Mandarin. This investigative report published by Southern Metropolis Daily 南方都市报, a respected Guangzhou-based news outlet known for its investigative and critical reporting on political and social issues. While the publication is officially independent and not a direct party mouthpiece, all media outlets in China are subject to state control. The publication exposed one of China’s most prominent online sex scandals in recent years. Published on 25 July, the report revealed the existence of a group called “MaskPark tree hold forum” on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, where hundreds of thousands of Chinese men were sharing sexually explicit photos and videos of women in China that had been secretly taken in private and public spaces, without their knowledge or consent.
