□ Wang Ying, reporter of this newspaper
Recently, Mr. Wang of Shanghai swiped a short video of a high-end restaurant on an online platform, claiming that he could "check in" a high-end seafood buffet for more than 700 yuan, with unlimited supplies of Boston lobster, abalone, peony shrimp and other ingredients, as well as one-to-one "butler-style service".
Mr. Wang, who was excited, came to the store to consume according to the recommendation of the blogger who explored the store, but found that the tempting peony shrimp and crayfish in the video were not there at all, king crab and Boston lobster were also greatly reduced, only some "scraps" were limited supply, one-to-one high-quality service did not exist, and the next order had to wait for a long time.
The dining experience was seriously inconsistent with the content promoted by the blogger, and Mr. Wang felt that the store was suspected of false propaganda, so he searched the review software. The search results show that only the first few pages are the praise of some food bloggers, followed by the bad reviews given by consumers after the meal, and claim that the blogger "just bad rice" (also known as 'just bad money', mostly refers to online bloggers receiving some false publicity or damaging word-of-mouth advertisements to earn "black money") to fool themselves.
"The advent of the Internet era has made more and more people realize the importance of traffic. Many businesses attract traffic in the form of online celebrity shop visits, resulting in many 'shop exploration bloggers'. Liu Zifei, a lawyer at Beijing Huidu Law Firm, told the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter that from the initial "food compass" to the current "taking money to do things", cutting fans "leeks", malicious bad reviews, and eating "overlord meals", the legal problems behind the online shop exploration industry have attracted everyone's attention.
"The taste that is only available in restaurants that specialize in 1000,100 yuan per person can be tasted here for less than <> yuan per person!" "No one knows Cantonese tea better than his family, and after eating the first bite, you will find that the previous ones have been eaten for nothing!" "I spent tens of thousands of yuan in this restaurant, and I ate all the dishes to sum up the experience, and teach you to eat back the book for a few hundred yuan!" ......
Netizen "momo", who is active on a social platform, is a food lover, and for a while, she often brushed the food exploration videos in the same city, the dishes in it were extremely tempting, and the blogger's recommendation was also very "inflammatory". So she followed in the footsteps of bloggers to try new restaurants.
"After eating a few times, I found that except for the old shops that were already doing very well, everything else would basically 'step on the thunder'." The netizen said that over time, she concluded that these shop-exploring videos have similar routines: the filters of each video are heavy, the color difference is huge, the blogger's expression is very exaggerated, and the copywriting also has the phenomenon of exaggerated description.
Netizen "Gluttonous Hao" also broke the news that he followed several food bloggers, and there were many fans, and once I accidentally saw two bloggers visiting the store to recommend the same restaurant, and found that the food varieties, display decorations, and shooting angles in their so-called "real pictures" were exactly the same. "It's too much to taste it yourself and then share it!" Netizens bluntly said that they were almost fooled and blocked these bloggers.
Ms. Chen, who is engaged in the incubation of Internet celebrities in Fuzhou, said that some food exploration videos do not need to appear in person, but only need to shoot the restaurant dishes, plus the commentary and dubbing of the blogger in the later stage. Therefore, some bloggers because the itinerary is full or the plan is trouble-saving, the store directly prepares pictures and videos to talk to the blogger about cooperation, and after the price is negotiated, the blogger publishes the video in the tone of visiting the store in person, "In fact, they have not been to these stores themselves."
Another netizen "squad leader" also shared that the most funny thing he encountered was that a new local restaurant was originally planned to open at the end of the year, but it could only be postponed due to the epidemic at that time. But before the opening of the new store, she brushed the so-called "real photo of the shop" posted by a shop blogger, which made her shout outrageous.
"Many merchants have reached cooperation agreements with influencers, where the influencers appear on camera to shoot videos and post them to online platforms, and merchants pay them. In this case, 'Insider Shop' should be an advertising act, and the product needs to be truthfully described in the video. In the face of this kind of advertising 'planting grass' video, the majority of netizens should consume more calmly and rationally, be cautious about 'planting grass', and rationally 'pull out grass'. Liu Zifei introduced.
On May 5 this year, the new version of the Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising was officially implemented. The third paragraph of article 1 of the Measures stipulates that, except where laws and administrative regulations prohibit the publication or covert publication of advertisements, where goods or services are promoted through forms such as knowledge introductions, experience sharing, and consumption assessments, and purchase methods such as shopping links are attached, the advertisement publisher shall conspicuously indicate "advertisement".
Therefore, all kinds of short videos and store visit videos appearing on media platforms, as long as they are accompanied by links that can jump directly to purchase, should be prominently marked with the word "advertisement" so that consumers can easily distinguish and must not mislead consumers.
In addition, Article 8 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates: "Business operators shall not make false or misleading commercial publicity about the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, honors, etc. of their goods, so as to deceive or mislead consumers." Business operators must not help other business operators conduct false or misleading commercial publicity by organizing false transactions, or other means. "Therefore, if there are false prices, excessive promises, etc. in the video, it may involve false promotion. Bloggers who visit the store should also bear corresponding legal responsibilities when they know and should know that the promotional content is false.
In addition to the unrealistic "fancy" praise of the restaurant by shop-visiting bloggers, there is also a kind of malicious comments by some shop-visiting bloggers who make malicious comments on businesses and publish false and inappropriate remarks, resulting in damage to the reputation of the merchant and a decline in turnover.
"This kind of behavior may be found to infringe on a business's right to reputation, but it is relatively difficult to define a similar situation." Liu Zifei explained that because the blogger is also a consumer, he has the right to make objective and truthful remarks about his true feelings, which is also the embodiment of the right to freedom of expression. "If the content published is seriously inaccurate, insulting or seriously derogatory, causing losses to the merchant, it may need to bear the legal consequences arising from the infringement."
In addition, self-media platforms have also revealed several times that some bloggers have asked merchants to free orders for them on the grounds of video promotion, and some have asked merchants for property on the grounds that they want to publish false videos. Liu Zifei said that this kind of behavior is essentially for the purpose of illegal possession, forcing merchants to provide them with property in the form of threats and intimidation, which may be suspected of the crime of extortion.
(Rule of Law Daily)