Online divination "spoiler" is life credible?
Reporter investigates fortune-telling tricks of fortune-telling
□ Our reporter Han Dandong
□ Intern Yang Huijia
"Seek luck", "Seek college entrance examination success", "Seek a smooth relationship"...In recent years, more and more young people have become fascinated by horoscope analysis, tarot card and other network divination, and the cost of a divination is not low: the basis of the charging standard The length of time and the content of divination are determined. For example, the charge for love divination is hundreds of yuan or even thousands of yuan per hour.
Due to the fast pace of study or work and the high pressure, it is understandable that young people choose to use online divination to decompress. However, some "wishful people" are eyeing this market, or induce consumers to buy "crystal" and "cinnabar" and other "evil-shielding products" from it. Expensive costs, or the disclosure of consumers’ personal privacy, fraud and other illegal crimes.
Recently, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily conducted an investigation into online fortune-telling and found that numerology and metaphysics has become a deceptive trick by some "network fortune-tellers".
In this regard, the interviewed experts believe that both offline and online divination have the attributes of "feudal superstition", reminding consumers not to be fooled by keeping their eyes open.
Emotional academic divination is large
The charging standard is set freely
"Account for something" has gradually become an entertainment lifestyle for young people. Every time during exams, New Years and other time nodes, there will be an upsurge of online fortune-telling.
Public information shows that the audience of constellation divination is showing a younger trend.
Take Tao Baibai, a horoscope emotional divination blogger who recently "out of the circle" as an example. Among the nearly 20 million fans on his short video platform, more than half are young people between 18 and 24 years old, of which 87% are women.
The reporter's investigation found that studies, emotions, and work have become the main content of young people's passion for divination, and the fees for "network fortune-tellers" vary.
A blogger @酒友Trot with 322,000 fans provides three levels of fortune-telling services for fans on an online platform: the first is free academic fortune-telling, which can provide students with free learning status testing, and has a fixed free quota every month; The second type is 90 yuan/piece for a single specific question, 40 places per month; the third type is 360 yuan/hour for WeChat voice divination, which requires appointment according to the situation, except for minors.
The reporter noticed that the blogger said that due to the heavy workload, he had stopped providing the first two divination services on August 3.
Some fans said that from April to May of this year, they had been making appointments for the blogger to select schools for the divination exam, but the appointments were unsuccessful.
A blogger @龙女塔罗 with 466,000 followers charges as much as 2,000 yuan per hour.
Despite the high cost, the appointment schedule has been scheduled to one month later.
The popularity of online fortune-telling has made many "student parties" also smell business opportunities and are eager to try.
Yu Hong (pseudonym), a student from a school in Beijing's Daxing District, has been acting as a "transporter" agent and operating a "divination hut" for some time.
She told reporters that she used the identity of a business woman who was nearly 30 years old to foretell her customers. Most of the customers were women, between the ages of 20 and 35. There were college students and married women.
Yu Hong sells crystals and other "good luck" items in the "divination hut" at prices ranging from 100 yuan to 1,000 yuan.
"The general process is to first use free fortune-telling and sharing learning materials on some apps, and then recommend crystals to them."
"Internet fortune-telling master" Luo Ling is also a college student like Yu Hong, but he does not have a shop, but promotes himself through a live broadcast platform, and then uses voice, phone or video to make money for others.
A single question divination is 60 yuan, a series of questions divination is 140 yuan per time, and love divination is 360 yuan per time.
"Transfer" cannot be transported
Lots of numerology and metaphysics
For online fortune-telling enthusiasts, what kind of psychology do they have when they purchase fortune-telling services?
Can the results of divination achieve their expectations?
Zhen Zhen, who lives in Beijing, recently broke up with her boyfriend.
In order to "transit", she bought a string of "transit powder crystals" from a fortune teller for 288 yuan.
The seller said that the crystal bracelet can help them lose weight and "bring peach blossoms."
In order to meet new love affair, Zhen Zhen spent a year to lose weight, but in the end she did not lose much weight and did not encounter new love affair.
Guan Li, who is in graduate school in Beijing, is accustomed to looking for an "network fortuneteller" for psychological comfort.
When preparing for postgraduate exams, she often looked for interactive fortune-telling videos to watch, “The results of the fortune-telling masters are pretty good, but my fortune-telling results are not accurate, and I still rely on my own efforts to get into graduate school.”
The reporter noticed that many young people think about online fortune-telling, just like Guan Li, as a kind of psychological comfort, but even so, they still flock to it. What are the reasons?
Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management, Communication University of China, analyzed that young people’s academic and work pressures, lack of social experience, and greater uncertainty about the future, need to find room for decompression, and network divination has a psychological suggestion function that can allow People get a certain degree of stress relief.
At the same time, divination itself has a "survivor bias". When the result is accurate, it will be infinitely magnified, and when the result is not on time, it will be ignored or used for excuses.
It is worth noting that it is understandable to provide decompression services for young people's divination, but some people have focused on this market, using different skills, under the banner of "technology", such as using high-tech technologies such as artificial intelligence and face recognition. Face to face and watch hands are equivalent to defrauding money.
An industry insider revealed to reporters that "fortune-tellers" were all performing at the beginning, and they gradually became believers.
The believers continued to promote it to the people around them, and then some people came here admiringly.
"Believe there is, in fact, it is a question of verbal skills and probability. When someone comes for a fortune-telling, the fortune-teller will usually calculate the basic information of the person. The most common is to count parents and family. Through some ambiguity, he can use his reaction. Out of the real situation."
"For example, if you guess how many brothers and sisters there are, you will usually use the phrase'Taoyuan three knots, one plum and one branch'. If he is the only child, the master can say that you have three brothers in your life, but you want Gong Gaolong. , Only you are left. It happens to be a plum branch. If you are two brothers, the master can be round like this. You hit the original three brothers. For some reason, you lost one. There are two left, Taoyuan three knots. , Remove the plum one branch, three minus one, and the two is not correct? It is still correct; if there are three brothers, it is directly Taoyuan three knots, which can’t be wrong; if there are four, three knots plus one plum, three plus one, four That's right again." The industry insider couldn't help laughing after he finished speaking.
The reporter's investigation found that there are still people who use the guise of "network divination" to induce consumers to pay but do not provide divination services.
Under the comment of a fortune-telling app, some users said, "I paid 280 yuan but no one took care of it."
Currently, this software can still be downloaded.
Because the amount of loss of these App users is small, even if they find that they have been cheated, they can't choose it.
What's more, with the development of science and technology, criminals have come up with many "new tricks" through online fortune-telling, brainwashing consumers, and making consumers believe that paying for fortune-telling is voluntary, rather than being deceived.
In April of this year, a shop in Shenzhen that carried out superstitious fraud in the name of tarot card divination was investigated and dealt with by the police.
Under the name of Tarot card divination, the shop provides various services such as "divine fortune telling" and "communication between yin and yang". The "fortune-telling master" combines Eastern and Western myths to form his own set of theories to help "repay Yin debts", etc. The reason is to induce customers to buy "crystal" and "cinnabar" to ward off evil spirits and charge tens of thousands of yuan.
The prices of various services on the price list vary, such as "Know Your Aura" at 699 yuan, "Power Pyramid" at 739 yuan, and "Energy Healing" at 1,389 yuan.
Until they were investigated and dealt with by the police, there were still some victims who believed that they were voluntary transfer payments and not fraud.
In addition to inducing consumers to shop, there are also "Internet fortune-tellers" suspected of leaking consumers' personal privacy.
The above-mentioned industry insiders told reporters that some "network fortune-tellers" will require customers to fill in their real names, birthdays, mobile phone numbers, ID numbers, etc. on web pages, but the purpose of designing similar web pages is usually not simple, and most of them have back-end servers.
"After clicking on the test page and writing down the full name, the owner’s name and WeChat ID will be associated in the database. The database continues to accumulate, and various advertisements and intermediary posts will be continuously sent to the owner’s mobile phone. Some criminals You can even use the owner’s personal information for fraud and other illegal and criminal activities."
Fictional facts induce divination
Suspected of fraud
According to Wang Xueshan, a lawyer from Hebei Li Jingyu Law Firm, Internet divination has the attributes of "feudal superstition".
If the "divine master" induces customers to buy so-called "crystals" and "cinnabar" and other "transporters" to ward off evil spirits, and charges consumers tens of thousands of yuan, they are already suspected of price violations.
He pointed out that simple divination fees are not completely equivalent to cheating money, and often do not constitute fraud. On the surface, some divination is a voluntary act of both parties, but subjectively, the "divine master" fabricated facts and maliciously exaggerated the effects and functions. , Objectively adopting fraudulent methods, such as brainwashing, fabricating others’ praise and other methods to defraud property, will constitute an illegal crime.
"Just drawing a few cards to count careers, count destiny, and use'supernatural forces' to'predict the future' are malicious exaggerations and fabricated facts. If the'fortuneteller' fabricates the facts, consumers will fall into a misunderstanding. , And then misled and paid the relevant fees, and the payment amount reached the standard for filing a fraud crime, it is suspected of constituting a fraud crime.” Wang Xueshan said.
According to the criminal law, the crime of fraud refers to the act of defrauding a large amount of public and private property by falsifying facts or concealing the truth for the purpose of illegal possession.
According to the “Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Fraud”, the value of fraudulent public and private property is 3,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan or more, 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan or more, and 500,000 yuan. The above should be respectively identified as "large amount", "huge amount" and "extraordinarily huge amount" as stipulated in Article 266 of the Criminal Law.
"If you encounter metaphysical fraud, consumers should keep good evidence such as chat records and transfer records. If the value of the fraudulent property exceeds 3,000 yuan, you can report the case to the public security agency." Zheng Ning said.
Aiming at the chaos of online fortune-telling, in order to prevent consumers from falling into online fortune-telling fraud, Zheng Ning suggested that first, multiple departments should strengthen joint law enforcement, form a joint force, and strengthen rectification; secondly, strengthen the education and guidance of the public, advocate a scientific spirit, and pay attention to Provide professional psychological counseling to help people establish the correct three views; finally, the Internet platform must earnestly perform the main responsibility, investigate and deal with illegal activities, and report in a timely manner.