Influencer Banned After Million-Yuan Flood Donation Claim Turns Out to Be One Yuan

When Typhoon Maysak sent floodwater through Nanning and other parts of the southern region of Guangxi in July, thousands of ordinary donors posted their transfer receipts online in a show of solidarity. This week, one of the most conspicuous of those receipts — a bank transfer of exactly 1,000,000 yuan to the Guangxi Red Cross — was officially declared fake, and the woman who posted it has been banned from the platform where she published it.

The account belonged to a lifestyle influencer on Xiaohongshu, the Instagram-like platform, writing under the name An Lan. Her receipt, dated July 17 and pinned to the top of her profile, carried the caption "a modest contribution to post-disaster rebuilding" (灾后重建，略尽绵薄之力). It drew more than a thousand likes and helped grow her following to about 31,000, according to a report by Fujian Daily carried by Jiupai News. In the comment sections of other users' donation posts, she repeatedly appeared with screenshots of smaller, five-figure gifts.

Then a reporter called the Red Cross. Staff confirmed that all donation lists are published, that no individual gift of a million yuan arrived on July 17 — and that the only donation under the name in question that day was for one yuan. Even that single yuan did not match the account number shown on the screenshot, suggesting the receipt itself was edited. Confronted with the findings, the influencer did not respond; Xiaohongshu removed the post and silenced the account. The case landed in the same week as another exposed by Fujian Daily, in which a Douyin account was found to have fabricated a 100,000-yuan flood donation — evidence of what Chinese media are calling a pattern of disaster philanthropy staged for followers.

The most consequential detail may be legal. Yu Wenwei, a partner at the Fuzhou office of AllBright Law Offices, told reporters that a published donation pledge, even a photoshopped one, has legal effect once publicized — meaning the charity could demand the influencer actually pay the million. Yu added that a platform that knows donation content is false and lets it spread can be held jointly liable for the harm.

On Weibo, where the story reached the trending list and Baidu's board carried it at number 20, the tone was less outrage at the amount than at the staging. "Donating one yuan isn't shameful — any amount given sincerely deserves respect," one commenter with a car-review following wrote. "But photoshopping a large donation and using a disaster as a traffic code is disgraceful." A user posting from Guangxi put it more personally: "Claiming a million and giving one yuan... don't do this to our Guangxi."

The scandal has landed in the middle of a broader Chinese argument about what giving looks like under the gaze of the feed — a debate that flared just last week when a charity called a lapsed monthly donor to ask why she stopped. This week's answer from the Red Cross was more prosaic: the lists are public, and the arithmetic does not lie.