A Chinese live stream platform has been sentenced to a fine of 30,000 yuan (nearly 4,000 euros) for his role in the death of a well-known blogger and roof climber at the end of 2017. Wu Yongning (26) died after falling from a skyscraper in Changsha city. He was working on a selfie video to win a prize of 100,000 yuan (14,492.00 United States Dollar).
Wu’s death led to a debate in China about the responsibility of live stream platforms for the safety of their users. After the drama, the state newspaper ‘China Daily’ wrote in a comment that the incident had shown that stricter surveillance was needed in live streaming. The newspaper noted that people sometimes perform “obscene and dangerous” stunts to attract viewers and make a profit.
Encouraged
Wu’s parents then reported a number of live stream platforms that their son used to promote his life-threatening stunts, one was Huajiao. A Beijing court specializing in Internet-related cases ruled yesterday that Huajiao bears “a small responsibility” for the fatal accident, reports the South China Morning Post.
As an internet provider, the Beijing-based company was partly responsible for the safety of its users, the court said. “As a commercial enterprise, Huajiao shared in the money that Wu earned through his followers. This partially encouraged his dangerous stunts.”
China’s first roof climber
Wu, born in the southern province of Hunan, worked in the film industry until he could make a living with roof climbing, a popular trend on social media where people climb extremely tall buildings and film and photograph themselves, often balancing on or dangling on the edge.
The twenties was considered China’s first roof climber. He had more than 1 million followers on live stream apps such as Kwai, Meipai, and Huoshan and uploaded nearly 300 videos of his stunts. The daredevil was best known for climbing skyscrapers without safety equipment. He only relied on his ‘martial arts training and careful planning’, as he once wrote in one of his messages on the Chinese Twitter variant ‘Weibo’.
Money for wedding and sick mother
Yongning always warned his fans not to imitate the life-threatening stunts. He died according to his family on November 8, 2017, after a fall of the 62-story Huayuan Hua Center in the Chinese city of Changsha.
“He wanted to marry his girlfriend a day after this rooftop challenge,” a family member told South China Morning Post. “He needed the money for the wedding and the medical treatment of his sick mother.”
View images of the selfie video below:
