Found in translation

A small army of amateur translators are putting Mandarin subtitles on English-language television usually ignored by Chinese viewers. But what started as a bit of fun is having a far bigger impact than they could ever have imagined. Liu Wei reports.

Web editor Li Wending, 30, inadvertently found himself in the middle of a major international news story in October. He had shared on social media a clip from the US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live, in which Kimmel led several children in a discussion about international politics. When asked how to tackle the US' $1.3 trillion debt to China, a boy said: "Kill everyone in China." Kimmel later asked him again about whether to allow Chinese to live. Li released the video with Chinese subtitles he had written himself, on weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.

More than 300 netizens reposted the clip, including the official account of Sina, China's largest news portal. Tens of thousands more reposted the Sina version.