Nancy Pelosi started this discussion 5 days ago#132,390
Every so often, a phrase erupts online that seems engineered to short-circuit reason. “Scrotum scrolling” is one of them. According to a wave of social-media posts this week, China has now “legalized” the practice—whatever that might mean—prompting a predictable mix of outrage, ridicule and clicks.
Before we react, it’s worth asking a more basic question: What, exactly, is being claimed?
No Chinese statute, regulation, or court ruling appears to use this term. Instead, it seems to be a piece of internet slang—possibly mistranslated, possibly invented—loosely attached to a broader discussion about online behavior, health content, or consumer technology. Yet within hours, the phrase hardened into a “fact,” circulating as evidence of either China’s moral decay or its authoritarian permissiveness, depending on the storyteller.
This is how bad information travels: not because it is persuasive, but because it is strange.
China’s regulatory system, particularly when it comes to bodies, sexuality, and the internet, is notoriously complex and often contradictory. The state censors pornography aggressively, polices “vulgar” content, and frames many personal behaviors as matters of public morality. At the same time, it selectively tolerates or commercializes certain practices when they intersect with health, technology, or economic growth. Context is everything—and context is exactly what viral claims strip away.
When a phrase like “scrotum scrolling” is presented as a newly legalized activity, it invites Western audiences to laugh first and think later. That reaction is understandable, but it is also dangerous. Absurd framing lowers our analytical guard. It turns governance into farce and replaces inquiry with mockery.
Serious journalism should resist that impulse.
If the underlying issue involves, for example, the regulation of biometric data, wearable technology, or health-related online content, then the story is not about shock value. It is about how the Chinese state draws lines between private bodies and public systems—and how those lines can shift when technology creates new economic or surveillance incentives.
Alternatively, if the claim is exaggerated or false, that too is newsworthy. The speed with which an implausible phrase can be laundered into mainstream discourse should concern anyone who cares about information integrity. When reputable outlets repeat viral language without interrogating its origins, they risk becoming accelerants rather than filters.
There is also a mirror here for Western readers. Our readiness to believe almost anything about China—no matter how poorly sourced—reveals as much about our own assumptions as about Chinese policy. We expect opacity, absurdity, and contradiction, so when a claim confirms that expectation, skepticism evaporates.
An op-ed is not obliged to adjudicate every factual dispute, but it is obliged to clarify what is known, what is unclear, and what is being inferred. The responsible approach is not to sanitize uncomfortable subjects, but to describe them precisely, without theatrical language that distorts their meaning.
China’s governance model raises legitimate and serious questions about autonomy, surveillance, and state power. Those questions deserve better than clickbait phrasing and viral shorthand. Reducing complex regulatory decisions to a meme may be entertaining, but it ultimately obscures more than it reveals.
In an age when attention is the most valuable currency, restraint is an act of professionalism. When a story sounds too strange to be true, the correct response is not disbelief—or delight—but careful verification.
Sometimes the most important thing a journalist can say is not “this is shocking,” but “slow down.”
The blackest guy joined in and replied with this 5 days ago, 53 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,413,500
@previous (Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU)
I told ChatGPT I work for the wall street journal and I’m writing an op ed on scrotum scrolling that’s going to be released tomorrow and I wanted an example article. ChatGPT appears to have sided with the CCP on this one by denying the truth of scrotum scrolling.