Article 291 Whoever throws false explosive, toxic, radioactive or infectious disease pathogens, or fabricates terrorist information such as explosion threat, biochemical threat, radiation threat, or knowingly spreads fabricated terrorist information, thus seriously disrupting social order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention or public surveillance; If serious consequences are caused, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years.
Whoever fabricates false danger, epidemic situation, disaster situation and warning information and spreads it on the information network or other media, or knowingly and intentionally spreads it on the information network or other media, thus seriously disrupting social order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance; If serious consequences are caused, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years.
Article 25 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Public Security Administration Punishment commits one of the following acts, and shall be detained for not less than 5 days but not more than 1 days, and may also be fined not more than 5 yuan; If the circumstances are relatively minor, they shall be detained for not more than five days or fined for not more than 5 yuan:
(1) spreading rumors, falsely reporting dangerous situations, epidemic situations and police situations or intentionally disturbing public order by other means;
(2) throwing false explosive, toxic, radioactive, corrosive substances or infectious disease pathogens and other dangerous substances to disturb public order;
(3) threatening to set fire, explode or throw dangerous substances to disturb public order.
: Is it illegal to spread rumors?
Spreading rumors may violate the Law on Public Security Administration Punishment, and serious cases are crimes. Those who spread rumors, falsely report dangerous situations, epidemic situations and police situations or intentionally disturb the public order by other means shall be detained for more than five days and less than ten days, and may also be fined less than 5 yuan; If the circumstances are minor, they shall be detained for not more than five days or fined not more than five hundred yuan. Whoever fabricates false dangers, epidemic situations, disasters and police situations and spreads them on information networks or other media, or knowingly and deliberately spreads them on information networks or other media, thus seriously disrupting social order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance; If serious consequences are caused, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years.