This 30 January 2015 email chain shows BuzzFeed trying to check Chinese examples for the CEN article through Tanya Chen, who immediately makes clear the limits of what she can do. Chen says Chinese stories picked up by Western outlets are often handled carelessly because they are geographically and culturally remote, but then adds: “My reading/writing comprehension is not that great,” saying it is easier for her to verify videos or news broadcasts. She says she can search Baidu, may ask her cousin to look, and can have Bryant Hua take “a quick peep” when he is back the following week. The document is significant because it shows BuzzFeed again relying on improvised in-house language help for source verification, even where the person being asked openly says she cannot fully verify the Chinese text herself. Alan White’s reply reinforces the wider methodological problem: he says CEN appears to have put out some material that “just isn’t true” and some that is “badly sourced” with “real sketchy quotes”, but also admits that “the quotes really feel like fake padding but it’s impossible to prove”. This matters because BuzzFeed was using Chinese-language examples as part of a serious investigation while still working through translation limits, firewall/geographic distance, ad hoc help from colleagues or relatives, and assumptions about whether stories had been taken from Chinese sources, copied by Chinese sites, or simply travelled through the same viral-news ecosystem.