>“Post around 8:20”? Ho had goofed. The movie star uploaded not only his sharply critical posting at 8:26 P.M., but he also posted the instructions he received from some other party. He is a Samsung Galaxy spokesman, but no one is fingering the Korean brand as the culprit.

So who told Ho to post “around 8:20”? For China’s noisy netizens, there was only one suspect: CCTV. Weibo users immediately pounced, noting that there were other anti-Apple postings around that time. By 8:45 P.M. comments criticizing the inattentive Mr. Ho were overwhelming the anti-Apple postings.

Ho, at 10:08 P.M., deleted his original posting and then denied he authored the attack on Apple, claiming that someone had “hacked” his Weibo account. Just about nobody believed the denial. Users began posting acerbic comments with the #PostAround8:20 hashtag. Weibo censors later deleted tens of thousands of postings with that hashtag.

Surreal.