Illegal cigarette sellers in the live broadcast room operate with a full set of code words
Industry insiders suggest strengthening supervision and plugging loopholes to cut off the chain of interest in online cigarette sales
May 31st is World No Tobacco Day.
Statistics show that the number of smokers in my country exceeds 300 million, and the number of deaths due to smoking exceeds 1 million each year.
"Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters found that some online platform anchors used various secret codes as a cover to sell various styles of hand-rolled cigarettes live, and the business was very hot.
Selling cigarettes online without permission is not only a violation of relevant laws, but also not conducive to the protection of minors.
Industry insiders suggested that the supervision of illegal online cigarette sales should be strengthened, and relevant platforms should promptly clean up such accounts.
Tobacco is called "cat food"
The secret code is "tricky"
The reporter's investigation found that on some online platforms, some online anchors used various secret codes as a cover to live broadcast selling hand-rolled cigarettes.
There are often only some color cards marked with numbers and different colors in these live broadcast rooms, and it is impossible to tell what they are doing from the appearance.
Most anchors only hear their voices and don’t see anyone, and talk to fans by watching “barrage”.
The reporter clicked into a live broadcast room, and the words "6.5", "8.0", "silk" and "chalk tube" kept appearing on the screen.
The reporter asked the anchor "what is 6.5", and soon got the answer of "6.5 is a small branch".
The reporter then clicked on the small yellow cart at the bottom right of the screen, and saw that there were a lot of "paper shredders", "chalk tubes" and "steel balls" in it. There were also several videos on the homepage that introduced how to use cigarettes and cigarette machines.
After constant inquiries, the reporter determined that this was a live broadcast of the sale of hand-rolled cigarettes.
"Shredder" refers to a manual cigarette rolling machine, "steel ball" refers to shredded tobacco, and "chalk tube" refers to filter-tipped cigarette tubes.
The reporter entered the above keywords on a certain platform and found that there are a large number of live cigarettes selling live broadcasts, generally using passwords to communicate.
Some platforms even enter sensitive words such as "shredded tobacco" and "tobacco pipe" to find live cigarette sales and related videos.
"Old iron who likes mellow 'cat food' can directly choose the link No. 19 to place an order!" The reporter entered a live broadcast room after searching for "shredded tobacco" on a certain platform.
Click on the small yellow cart, and it will display products such as "Faxiao Cat Food (Furong Flavor-Small and Medium)" and "Faxiao Cat Food (Xi Flavor-Xiao)", with as many as 23 varieties.
In just a few minutes, 50 customers entered the live broadcast room to inquire.
Some customers left a message and said: "This time the draw is smooth, and I will buy yours in the future."
"Vest" more than one
"Hard goods" instantly kill
The reporter's investigation found that these anchors seldom directly said the keywords containing "smoke", and did not mention the brand of cigarettes, and the trading code was full of tricks.
In the live broadcast room watched by reporters alone, there are various names: cigarette machines are called "paper shredders", "staplers", "pencil cutters", "vegetable cutters", etc., and filter-tipped cigarettes are called "pencils" and "chalks". "Chalk tube", "hollow tube", etc., and the cut tobacco is called "cat food", "bait", "bait", "steel ball", "cleaning ball", etc., in order to cover up the truth.
In order to cater to user preferences, many filter cigarette tubes are marked with various well-known cigarette brands, covering almost all the best-selling high-end cigarette brands, with different price points and specifications.
Some anchors are more cautious. Faced with the reporter's inquiries about whether there is a certain brand of cigarette tubes, they directly told "don't say the name of the cigarette", but replaced it with "huanglong", "green flower", "black tube", etc., and took out the corresponding The color card asked the reporter "Can you understand it?"
Correspondingly, cut tobacco is also divided into small strength, medium strength and great strength.
Regarding the quality of the cut tobacco, many anchors said that it is the raw silk produced in Yunnan, with no added spices, and the taste is absolutely mellow.
The price of different shredded tobacco ranges from tens of yuan to several hundred yuan per catty. The price of 1,200 "6.5 cigarette tubes" is about 80 yuan, and the price of manual cigarette machines is generally about 150 yuan. You can buy it alone or buy a package.
Although there are only "paper shredders" and "chalk tubes" in the small yellow car in some live broadcast rooms, when the reporter asked whether there was shredded tobacco and how to buy it, some anchors said: "Yes! If you want, you can add WeChat to chat privately."
The reporter found that many anchors live broadcast for several hours at a time, and the number of fans ranges from more than 1,000 to tens of thousands of people.
The sales of shredded tobacco and smoking accessories in the live broadcast room are also very popular. Some styles of cigarette tubes and tobacco shreds have been snapped up before the live broadcast is over.
The reporter contacted the customer service staff of a short video platform and asked if they could publish cigarette videos.
The customer service rep responded with "community violations," but didn't say what the penalties would be.
In addition to live streaming of cigarettes, entering "smoke", "cigarettes" and "pipes" on some social platform apps can find a large number of short videos promoting cigarette pipes, cigarette gift boxes or other cigarettes.
Some evaluate the taste of a certain cigarette, while others directly recommend ten cigarettes suitable for boys or girls.
Some video publishers will also put contact information at the top of the message area to facilitate consumers to contact and purchase.
When a message about buying cigarettes is found, some accounts will reply "in stock".
In addition, there are also a large number of videos on social networking platforms that identify real and fake cigarettes, which seem to be popular science, but are actually advertised for some cigarette brands in disguise.
Many citizens said that this practice should be banned, especially tobacco companies and staff should not publish such videos online.
Livestreaming of cigarettes is more harmful
Play together online and offline
Li Enze, deputy director of the Public Welfare Law Professional Committee of the China Association for Smoking Control, said that from a legal perspective, it is illegal to sell cigarettes online through live webcasts or short videos without permission.
my country's Tobacco Monopoly Law stipulates that cigarettes, cigars, cut tobacco, red-cured tobacco leaves, tobacco leaves, cigarette paper, filter rods, tobacco tow, and tobacco-specific machinery are all tobacco monopoly products.
Article 40 of the Measures for the Administration of Tobacco Monopoly Licenses stipulates that, except for enterprises that have obtained a tobacco monopoly production enterprise license or a tobacco monopoly wholesale enterprise license to sell tobacco monopoly products in accordance with the law, no citizen, legal person or other organization may sell tobacco products through information networks. Tobacco monopoly.
In addition, selling cigarettes online will also induce young people to smoke, which is not conducive to the protection of minors.
Now, many teens have tablets or mobile phones, and they have easy access to live cigarettes and short videos of cigarettes.
Once watching this type of video, relevant platforms will continue to push relevant content, which can easily strengthen the impression of young people on cigarettes.
Some brick-and-mortar stores that sell cigarettes often take advantage of Valentine's Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and other festivals to publish videos of various cigarette gift boxes on online social platforms, which look romantic and beautiful, and are easy to attract young people to buy.
"Although our country's law explicitly prohibits the sale of cigarettes to minors, it is difficult for social media users to determine whether customers are adults," Li Enze said.
According to industry insiders, there are still many loopholes in the supervision of online cigarette transactions.
The regulatory authorities should establish a normalized joint governance mechanism with the network platform, and strengthen the offline crackdown, trace the source of related shredded tobacco and smoking sets, and cut off the interest chain of online cigarette sales from the source.
Zhang Jianshu, president of the Beijing Municipal Association for Smoking Control, said that the key is to form effective supervision so that online cigarette sales cannot be exposed, and prevent the rectification from shrinking and resurgence after a while.
Li Enze suggested that the punishment should be increased. In addition to pursuing legal responsibilities according to the law, relevant online platforms should also take measures such as banning accounts and prohibiting re-registration for life to crack down on streamers and businesses who illegally sell cigarettes online.
Text/Xinhua