Xinhua News Agency, Tianjin, April 8 -
Title: Behind the "drink to drink," and who "Ha ha ha"?
——Investigation on "Problem Drinking Broadcasting" to Govern "Difficulties in Root Breaking
Xinhua News Agency reporters Bai Jiali and Chen Dongshu
"Three or four bottles of liquor are poured into a giant bowl, and the anchor is'suffocated in one bite.'" "White, beer, red, foreign, and yellow wines are mixed in a whole bottle and quickly booze. When drinking, the anchor vomits and even loses consciousness" "A group of men and women are in Drinking alcohol together until they fainted under the table."...
A reporter from Xinhua News Agency found that although "problematic eating and broadcasting" has been censored, the "problematic drinking and broadcasting" that used "to fight alcohol and drunk" to "suck fans" is still active on some short video platforms, which not only endangers the anchor’s health, but also promotes it. The abnormal mentality of ugly appraisal seriously damages the healthy ecology of the industry.
"Problem Drinking Broadcasting" is a big problem: get drunk, fight hard, sell fake alcohol
The reporter found a lot of "problem drinking and broadcasting" videos on online platforms such as Kuaishou, Watermelon Video, and Station B.
The more drunk you are, the better.
The reporter saw on the Kuaishou platform that an anchor picked up a barrel of white wine and poured it into his mouth until he couldn't drink it in and squirted it out.
There was also an anchor competing with a woman to drink 60-degree liquor until one of them became drunk and lost consciousness.
A watermelon video anchor told reporters that he has accumulated 200,000 fans in more than a year of "drinking broadcast".
"The more you drink in the live broadcast, the higher the number of clicks. Once after 5 sips of 1 catty of liquor, the number of views soared to more than 200,000."
The more fierce the fight, the better.
In Kuaishou, there are many anchors advocating that "white wine is fun, beer sews", "beer + white, mix it up", "love to fight to win", etc. They use mixed wines and multi-players to "suck fans". Use the "drinking challenge" as a gimmick to increase fans: pick out the particularly intoxicating wine and drink several bottles in one breath.
In order to verify that the anchor was really drunk, drunk, or vomiting, some viewers would also ask the anchor to "ignite a wine test" or "screenshot analysis". If a fake was found, they would abuse or even complain to the anchor.
The reporter combed through more than 6,000 comments on a certain "problem drinking broadcast" account on the Kuaishou platform, most of which were messages encouraging alcohol.
There are many fake and inferior wines.
Many anchors will continue to tout a certain wine in the video, they will link the video to Weidian, Taobao shop, and will publish the "buy wine plus WeChat" reminder in the live comment area to attract the flow of the wine.
But the reporter found that the quality of these wines is at great risk.
The anchor "Mr. Xin Yujiu" with 38,000 fans drank the same "tea cylinder wine" in every short video released. The video has a close-up of the wine packaging and the account is linked to the Kuaishou store.
According to information from the Xinmin City Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Liaoning, the Zhengjiafang Distillery in Shenyang City, which produced the wine, has been "pretending to be a qualified product with substandard products" for many consecutive years since 2017 and "produced products that do not meet laws, regulations or food safety standards." "Food and food additives" were subject to administrative penalties.
Some wine products of the factory have also been inspected and determined to be unqualified products.
Who is "hehehe" behind "drinking and drinking"?
Experts such as Zang Lei, a senior researcher at the International Center for the Rule of Law on the Internet at Beijing Normal University, said that behind the emergence of "problem drinking and broadcasting" is a huge interest drive.
——The style is low but click high.
The reporter found that the number of fans on the Kuaishou platform "Problem Drinking Broadcast" account ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.
The single-play volume of the "drinking broadcast" video on the watermelon video even reached more than 200,000.
Li Shan, who has been in the live broadcast industry for nearly 10 years, now runs an MCN company in Tianjin. She believes that the "problem drinking and broadcasting" review satisfies the evil tastes of some viewers, and in fact attracted a large number of users to click and reward.
Some anchors fancy the low threshold of this field, and even break through the legal bottom line, just to quickly "absorb fans" and "nutrition" accounts.
-It hurts the body but makes money.
A Kuaishou platform anchor said frankly that in order to "acquire fans", he needs high-frequency updates, and he really feels more and more that his body is "unbearable". This fight is because of the "problem drinking and broadcasting" to make more money.
A video UP owner told reporters that in his "drinking broadcast", it costs 3,000 yuan for a wine advertisement and 5,000 yuan for a topic.
According to industry insiders, there are anchors with more than 10,000 fans on short video platforms, and the average reward for a three or four-hour "drinking broadcast" is about 1,000 to 3,000 yuan. If you accept the specified challenge from the fans, the reward will be paid. It may be higher.
In addition, the delivery of goods in the "drinking broadcast" live broadcast can be divided into 10% to 15% of sales.
——The management is chaotic and the benefits are big.
Previously, the Cyberspace Administration of China and regulatory authorities in many places have made explicit prohibitions on “eating and broadcasting” content, and some short-headed video and live broadcast platforms have also promised to “seriously deal with such illegal content or delete works. Penalties such as shutting down live broadcasts and banning accounts".
However, the reporter found that the actual management strength of each platform is not the same.
According to industry insiders, some head short video platforms respond more quickly to "over-the-line content", but other large platforms require "a certain number of user reports to be dealt with."
A staff member of a well-known online video platform confessed that such "problem drinking and broadcasting" has existed for some time, and the platform, as its community of interests, often chooses to acquiesce when the content is not directly and obviously illegal.
"After all, traffic is the lifeblood of the platform. As long as it is not "grabbed" by the regulatory authorities, some platforms would rather "close one eye" for content that can bring mass traffic."
There are also platform staff who said that the current real-time live broadcast supervision is indeed still difficult, and there are still loopholes in the inspection and scanning of the live broadcast room, including the AI technical appraisal.
"For example, some anchors will chat for a long time, and then drink for a while, it will increase the difficulty of our discovery."
Compacting platform responsibilities, cutting off the chain of interests, and improving supervision technology
Over a period of time, the regulatory authorities have continued to strengthen the supervision of webcasting, and there have been fewer violations of laws and regulations.
In September last year, after the national cybersecurity and informatization department took action, legislatures in Guangdong, Hebei and many other places took action against the phenomenon of “online eating and broadcasting” where fake eating, vomiting and other behaviors existed, and the effect was obvious.
Experts believe that these experiences are very helpful for managing "problem drinking and broadcasting."
Yao Zejin, executive vice-president of the Guangming School of Journalism and Communication of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the problems in "eating and broadcasting" and "drinking and broadcasting" indicate that platform supervision responsibilities have not yet been consolidated and need to be further strengthened.
In the face of vulgar or even illegal content, Internet platforms do not simply mark "Don't drink alcohol", "Minors are prohibited from drinking" and other prompts to "shake away from responsibility". For example, due to the impulse for profit and the inability to deal with the relevant content in a timely manner, problems may arise. The platform should take responsibility.
The industry believes that the role of public supervision should be further brought into play to encourage users to report violations of laws and regulations, and at the same time urge platform companies to optimize their existing complaint and report portals and establish more convenient and complete reporting channels.
Zang Lei suggested that for industry issues with strong user feedback and prominent news reports, regulators should also increase supervision and law enforcement, and conduct special supervision in the form of special actions.
In addition, the regulatory authorities should also introduce policies to encourage and urge relevant platform companies to invest in content screening technology, effectively promote the effectiveness of technology screening, and plug related loopholes.
Yao Zejin suggested that the platform can establish an anchor credit mechanism to break the long-standing chaos of "black and red is also red" and "negative energy is also energy" in the online video field, cut off the profit chain of fame by vulgar scrutiny of ugliness, and guide the production of live content. , Distortion of value in communication.
Zang Lei also reminded that although the current mainstream view believes that the platform and the anchor do not constitute a labor relationship, if the anchor is physically injured or even killed due to "drinking the broadcast", if there is an agreement between the anchor and the platform on health issues, the platform should be liable for breach of contract.