Douyin Purges 170,000 Comments for Joking About Grisly Murder

After a Hangzhou man was found to have dismembered his wife and disposed of her remains in a septic tank, netizens began posting about giving their partners “septic tank warnings” for disobedience

Douyin — as TikTok is branded in China — has deleted tens of thousands of dark and irreverent posts about a gruesome murder in the eastern city of Hangzhou, involving a man who killed his wife and discarded her remains in a septic tank.

In an announcement Wednesday, Douyin said it had removed over 170,000 comments, 30,000 videos, and 350 hashtags after determining they had violated the platform’s standards. The short-video app with 400 million daily active users further said that it opposed any behavior that could be construed as “joking about tragic news” or “commercializing death” — a phenomenon media outlet SupChina dubbed “malicious memeification.”

Douyin’s notice followed the Hangzhou police releasing the results of an investigation after they found the body of a woman who’d been missing for weeks in a septic tank near her home. According to the investigation report, the woman’s husband had killed her, dismembered her body, and disposed of the remains in a septic tank.

News of the murder sparked wide discussion online, with many commenting on the brutality of the crime itself as well as the husband’s composure after the fact: Soon after reporting his wife missing to police, the 55-year-old had accepted media interviews.

Meanwhile, netizens also wondered how the husband could have kept the murder hidden from the police for weeks, with some speculating that he had used a meat grinder and 2 tons of water to flush her remains down the toilet. (Local media had previously reported that according to property management, the man’s home had used 2 tons of water on the day his wife disappeared.)

In the aftermath of the murder, comments and posts such as “septic tank warning,” “2-tons-of-water warning,” “thanks to my husband for not killing me today” started trending on Chinese social media platforms, including Douyin.

Below a video of a woman dancing while her partner is doing household chores, several internet users commented with the phrase “septic tank warning.” In another video, a woman is seen squatting to clean a man’s shoes, with the on-screen text reading: “Since the Hangzhou investigation, I’ve started obeying my husband in every way. He said his shoes were dirty, so here I am cleaning them for him.”

While Douyin’s decision to remove the irreverent posts was applauded by many, some netizens have pointed out that misogynist content can still be found on the app. Last month, Douyin came under fire after users posted sexist and superstitious comments — such as “pray for male babies” and “change my baby from female to male” — on its platform.

Editor: David Paulk.

(Header image: A man walks in front of a wall featuring the Douyin logo in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, Oct. 18, 2019. Long Wei/People Visual)