A Chinese court has sentenced a man to seven years of imprisonment for allegedly setting a telecommunications box on fire because the internet was “slow.”
According to Yahoo! News, the man, only identified by his surname Lan, was sentenced on Monday for the incident that occurred in China’s autonomous region of Guangxi in June 2021.
Photo via AFP
Lan allegedly took out his frustrations on a public telecommunication box with optical fiber network cables because of the “slow” connection of the internet cafe he was in. It was reported that he “used a lighter to set a napkin he had on him on fire, then burned down a telecommunications box at a traffic intersection.”
The incident resulted in the loss of internet connection for several buildings in the area, including a public hospital and 4,000 households and offices which lasted between 20 and 50 hours.
Authorities eventually seized Lan’s lighter.
Months later, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for “destroying public telecommunications facilities.”
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By: Aishah Akashah Ahadiat
