When the Chinese Stanford student Charlwin Mao was thinking of a name for his start-up in 2013, he settled on Xiaohongshu, which translates to “Little Red Book”. It referenced the colour of his prestigious university and his former employer, Bain Capital, both bastions of US capitalism. This week, however, his choice of name became the focal point of an online conspiracy theory that the app was named after a compilation of Chairman Mao Zedong’s...

The world-famous boxer has ink markings across several areas of his anatomy, with doubts over the significance of the image of Chinese leader Mao Zedong.