In 2013, the government launched a crackdown on online "rumour-mongering" targeting influential users on the Twitter-like website Sina Weibo, but it was widely seen as an attempt to stem criticism of the ruling Communist party.
Online rumours put Priyanka Chopra in the running for the role – who is neither Muslim nor a teenager.
The authorities have said the measure is necessary to prevent online rumours hurting individuals and damaging society.
I would go so far as saying online rumours get online in the first place because someone from the journalist's camp leaked it.
From this thin reed of fact came a thicket of online rumours that Mr Wang had fled to the consulate to seek asylum.
"We are trying to confirm the online rumours," said a woman at the general office of Wuxi city's family-planning committee, a department under the municipal government.
China launched a severe crackdown on what it calls "online rumours" this summer in an effort to rein in the country's freewheeling online communities.
It compared online rumours to "big character posters", the handwritten denunciations of people and institutions mostly associated with the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966.
