Lei Zhengfu

Lei Zhengfu (; born July 1958) is a former Chinese politician who served as Communist Party Secretary of Beibei District, Chongqing municipality. He was dismissed from his position a few days after a sex video recorded in 2007 became popular online via the popular microblog service Sina Weibo.

On November 20, 2012, a series of hotel room sex screenshots titled "Lei, the secretary who accepts sex bribes", were published on a personal website called "Civil Supervision". Lei Zhengfu was the Beibei District of Chongqing Party Secretary at the time. A few hours later, these screenshots started to go viral through microblogs. Sixty-three hours after the screenshots first went online, on November 23, Chongqing Municipal People's Government information office official made an announcement that the government had proved the male shown in the video was Lei, who will be removed from his position. This case is believed to be a result of “Network supervision by public opinion".

Timeline After the conclusion of the 18th Party Congress in China, on November 20, 2012, Zhu Ruifeng posted the screen shot on his website “Civil Supervision”; Xu Jiguang, a former investigative journalist later posted it on his personal microblog. Because of the popularity of microblogs in China, people started to pay attention; the number of hits to the Civil Supervision blog dramatically increased, reaching more than 20 million.

This phenomenon drew the attention of other media, and they began to interview Lei, who commented that the “promiscuous video is deceitful”. On November 23, the press office of the Chongqing municipal government issued a microblog stating that the Chongqing Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection, in charge of enforcing party discipline, had taken note of the content of the video and was verifying its authenticity. On November 23, an official at the press office made an announcement on microblog, saying that the government had verified that the male shown in the video was Lei himself, who will be removed from his position. Lei was protected and was promoted few months later to be the Beibei District Party Secretary. During those three years, the video was kept secret.

Result Lei was sentenced to 13 years in jail for taking more than 3.1 million yuan ($500,000) in bribes, and was incarcerated at Jiulong Prison of Chongqing until his release on January 25, 2024.

Social media In this “63 anti-corruption”, the power of social media is embraced by many media analysts. Before the Lei scandal, there had been similar scandals with investigations ranging from one month to half a year before punishment occurred. However, this time, within less than three days, a corrupt official was removed and under official investigation.

Media experts believe that the internet and especially social media have become an important tool in the fight against Chinese official corruption.