It depends on the specific situation. Generally speaking, it is illegal to spread rumors. If the circumstances are serious, according to different types of rumors, it can constitute the crimes of libel, false accusation and frame-up, stirring up trouble, commodity reputation, fabricating and spreading false information about securities and futures trading, and fabricating and spreading false terrorist information.

There are three kinds of legal responsibilities for network rumors. 1, civil liability; If spreading rumors infringes upon a citizen's personal reputation or infringes upon the goodwill of a legal person, according to the provisions of the General Principles of the Civil Law of our country, it shall bear the responsibility of stopping the infringement, restoring the reputation, eliminating the influence, apologizing and compensating for the losses. 2. Administrative responsibility: Those who spread rumors, falsely report dangerous situations, epidemic situations and police situations or intentionally disturb public order by other means, or openly insult others or fabricate facts to slander others, which do not constitute a crime, shall be detained in accordance with the Law on Public Security Administration Punishment and other provisions. 3. Criminal responsibility; The Criminal Law stipulates that whoever fabricates false information about danger, epidemic situation, disaster and early warning and spreads it on the information network or other media, or knowingly spreads it on the information network or other media, seriously disrupting social order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or control; 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.

Legal basis:

According to the public security administration punishment law

Article 25? Anyone who commits one of the following acts shall be detained for more than five days and less than ten days, and may be fined not more than five hundred yuan; If the circumstances are relatively minor, they shall be detained for not more than five days or fined not more than five hundred yuan:

(a) spreading rumors, lying about dangerous situations, epidemic situations, police situations or deliberately disturbing public order by other means;

(2) throwing false explosive, toxic, radioactive and corrosive substances or infectious disease pathogens to disturb public order;

(3) Threatening to set fire, explode or throw dangerous substances to disturb public order.