The majority of fake stories shared on the internet throughout China involve food safety or health advice, an online information verification team set up by tech giant Tencent said last Wednesday.

科技巨头腾讯成立的网络信息查证团队于上周三表示，国内互联网上分享的虚假消息大部分涉及食品安全或健康建议。

Fact Check, a platform that analyzes¹ online rumors², released a list of the top 10 online rumors that duped Chinese netizens since April last year. Eight related to people's health - especially the safety of food and medicine.

网络谣言分析平台“较真”发布了自去年4月以来欺骗国内网民的10大网络谣言榜单。其中8条涉及人体健康，尤其是食品药品安全。

In February, for example, a video that included claims that seaweed that contained plastic was being sold in China made the rounds on the internet.

例如，今年2月，声称含有塑料成分的紫菜正在国内销售的一段视频在网上广为流传。

The video was quickly proved false by the Center for Food Safety Monitoring and Risk Assessment³ in Beijing, according to the platform, yet the seaweed industry in Fujian still saw a nearly 100 million yuan loss.

据较真平台介绍，北京市食品安全监控和风险评估中心很快就此视频进行了辟谣，但福建的紫菜产业仍遭受了近1亿元的损失。

"Netizens are easily attracted by health information online and like to forward it to friends or family members," said Wang Yang, an employee responsible for the platform at Tencent.

腾讯公司该平台一位名叫汪洋的负责人表示：“网民很容易被网上的健康信息所吸引，并愿意将它转发给朋友或家庭成员。”

The platform also found that people at or over 60 years old had the highest chance of being tricked - as high as 33.8%.

较真平台还发现，60岁及以上老人受骗机率最高，高达33.8%。

"To prevent older netizens from being duped by fake information, we started to cooperate with food and medicine administrations this year, hoping to post authorized⁴ responses and verify the information in a timely manner," Wang said.

汪洋说道：“为了防止老年网民被虚假信息所欺骗，我们今年已经开始与食品和药品管理部门合作，希望可以发布权威信息，并且以一种及时的方式进行核实。”