■ On March 3, a blogger named "Jinyang Jyan" on Weibo posted a video of "Why was he diagnosed with liver cancer", which attracted the attention of netizens. However, the content of the video is not the real experience of the blogger, and the words "the content of this issue is pure fiction" were placed at the end of the entire video and flashed, causing many people to misunderstand.

■ Subsequently, the relevant platform imposed penalties on the blogger such as banning and suspending advertising revenue. However, the video had been played at least 2000 million times before it was taken down, and its practice of "gaining traffic through the topic of consuming cancer patients" was questioned by many netizens.

■ According to industry insiders, some anchors attract traffic by "selling badly", and some teams help them make up "personalities" and "monetize traffic by attracting more people's attention." ”

■ Some lawyers said in an interview that such practices are aimed at pursuing the attention or benefits brought by the "traffic economy". "In addition to banning bloggers, the platform also recommends corresponding punishments for the incubation and management institutions behind such bloggers."

　　1

Internet celebrity bloggers shoot videos

Claiming that he had liver cancer, the words "pure fiction" flashed

On March 3, the reporter noticed that "Jinyang Jyan" released a video with a length of nearly 30 minutes. He recounted that he was found to have liver cancer during the physical examination" and "the doctor told me that the chance of cure is not great". In the video, he also said many times that he couldn't understand why he got liver cancer at the age of 8.

As a blogger with more than 550.3 million fans, "Jinyang Jyan" quickly climbed after the video was released, and on the afternoon of March 30, more than 2000 million times, many netizens left messages under the video expressing "I hope this is not true" and "must be treated well".

The reporter noticed that "Jinyang Jyan" said in the second half of the video that he had conducted a review and obtained the results of the review, but did not disclose the results of the review.

However, many careful netizens noticed a flashing picture at the end of the video. In this frame, "Jin Yang Jyan" means that "the content of this video is pure fiction", and this sentence is inconspicuous in the entire picture, sandwiched in 5 lines. In addition, the words "pure fiction" no longer appear in the entire video.

Some netizens said that the content of the entire video will cause viewers to misunderstand that they have indeed been found to have liver cancer. Such videos can seriously hurt the feelings of cancer patients and their families. One netizen said: "'No cancer in the world' is the wish of many people, and some people may never understand the pain of cancer patients and families, but please also ask these people to maintain a little kindness and respect for others." ”

In this regard, the reporter tried to contact the blogger, but as of press time, the other party did not reply.

However, on the afternoon of March 3, "Jinyang Jyan" deleted the above video and issued an apology statement. The statement said: "In order to make this video a wake-up call to everyone to value their own bodies, I thought of presenting it in the first person. "The video only told everyone at the end that the video was fictional and it was my creative negligence, sorry everyone, I know it was wrong."

On the morning of March 3, the official Weibo Weibo of Sina Weibo Community Management announced that the user "Jinyang Jyan" posted a deduction video describing his feelings after being diagnosed with cancer, without marking the content as "fiction" or "deduction" in a conspicuous position in the video, and only the explanation that "the content of this issue is purely fictional" appeared at the end of the video, causing some netizens to misunderstand it as a real event, which in turn triggered public opinion discussion. In accordance with relevant regulations, the station party will impose a stage ban on the user Jin "Yang Jyan", prohibit attention and suspend advertising revenue.

　　2

MCN agency employees

Create a special story "script" for bloggers to "sell badly" for traffic

Unlike "Jinyang Jyan", which marked "the content is pure fiction" in an inconspicuous place, some platform bloggers have previously pretended to be sick and "sold miserably" to obtain profits.

According to a police report in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, a man surnamed Douyin fabricated his illness to "sell miserable", and opened a live broadcast to accept tips and bring goods. At the time of his report, he had illegally made more than 11,5 yuan, and the man surnamed Zhang defended himself: "I never said that I had cancer, I was only in the advanced stage of lovesickness."

In the first half of 2021, a blogger on station B successively posted his "vomiting blood photos", fraudulently donating more than 4,<> yuan, and finally his account was banned by the platform. In addition, Xiaohongshu and other platforms have previously appeared "sick women", falsely claiming that they have some serious disease, so as to bring scar repair patches, health products and other products to netizens.

A staff member of an MCN agency (a company that helps contracted influencers to continuously output and monetize content) told reporters that the competition for all kinds of anchors and bloggers with goods is fierce. "If there is traffic, there will be revenue. Therefore, when cooperating with some companies, if the company agrees, it will do some story script creation and shoot some fictional content, many of which are to attract attention by 'selling miserable'. In order to avoid being held accountable, the word 'fictional' will also be marked in the live broadcast or video, but it is very vague or marked in an inconspicuous place. ”

Mr. Xie (pseudonym), the person in charge of a anchor brokerage company in Xi'an, revealed to reporters that in previous years, some anchors specially promoted their "miserable" characters to attract attention. "First of all, there needs to be conflict, such as being young when you are sick, or at a good stage of life; Then cooperate with some stories, such as being a rural family, working hard in the city, or the partner is not self-motivated, relying on his own work in exchange for sympathy; After that, start bringing in the product into the live broadcast or released video to monetize. Mr. Xie said that these are all specially scripted, and some even one script will be used on different anchors. In the past two years, some platforms have dealt with the situation of shooting "fake stories", so everyone will also mark the word "fiction" in some inconspicuous places, but if it is not obvious, many fans will not notice.

The reporter saw that on the Weibo platform, the profile of "Jinyang Jyan" is "beauty celebrity". Previously, he has released some beauty videos with brand exposure, in addition to some lifestyle videos, photos also appear in beauty products.

　　3

How to put an end to "selling miserable" fake videos?

Platform: Indefinite ban or zero followers

On March 3, the State Council's new office held a press conference on the 28 "Qinglang" series of special actions. In response to the issue of short video ecological governance at the meeting, it was pointed out that "comprehensively cleaning up poorly oriented and misleading short videos produced through fake scenes, compilation details, fictional experiences and other methods of posing for photos" is one of the main contents of this special operation.

Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejian Law Firm, believes that the authenticity of online information in the self-media era is difficult to guarantee, and many Internet celebrity bloggers sacrifice the authenticity of the information they publish for the sake of blog traffic. Internet celebrities uploaded a short video saying that they were found liver cancer during the physical examination, filmed and uploaded a very authentic video, and put the statement that "this content is pure fiction" in an inconspicuous position in the last two seconds of the video, which led to misunderstanding by the vast majority of people, caused a large range of impact, and deceived the public's feelings.

Fu Jian said that many laws and regulations in China emphasize that information such as short videos published online should abide by public order and good customs and uphold the principle of good faith. Among them, short video posing to deceive the public into emotion blog traffic is bad information, and serious may be suspected of breaking the law. Online information content service platforms may take measures such as warning rectification, restricting functions, suspending updates, and banning accounts to resist the spread of this bad video.

Lawyer Chen Hao, director of Shaanxi Dezun Law Firm, told reporters that if the Internet celebrity defrauded money by fabricating facts or concealing the truth in the video, and the amount reached the standard for filing a case, it should be suspected of fraud. If an influencer shoots a video with fictitious facts for the purpose of attracting attention, gaining attention, and defrauding traffic, it falls within the category of moral evaluation and should be handled by the video platform or regulator. "Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has been comprehensively cleaning up short videos that are poorly oriented and misleading through methods such as falsifying scenes, compiling details, and fabricating experiences. I believe that through the guidance and supervision of relevant departments, this phenomenon will become less and less. ”

The reporter's inquiry found that in addition to the Weibo platform, "Jinyang Jyan" also has accounts of the same name on other short video platforms, and they were all banned on March 3.

In addition, the reporter noticed that many platforms immediately issued governance measures for fictional content.

On March 3, Douyin issued an announcement saying that if a work is not labeled as "interpretation" or "fiction", causing misunderstanding among the public and news media and becoming "false information", the platform will deal with it strictly, and impose punishments such as a complete ban of 30 days to an indefinite ban on the publishing account, depending on the circumstances.

On March 3, Kuaishou Technology announced that punitive measures such as zero fans, fan erase, and restrictions on fan growth were implemented for counterfeiting and counterfeiting party and government organs, news media institutions, and parties involved in public opinion incidents.

What experts say:

The lure of the "traffic economy"

Link responsibility to the MCN organization

Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said in an interview that the main root cause of such a situation is the temptation of "traffic economy".

"They get sympathy in this way, and sympathy can be converted into traffic, traffic can be converted into attention, and finally into business benefits."

Zhu Wei said that in the past, more "pretending to be terminally ill" content was very direct false charity and fraudulent donations, and the "terminal illness video" filmed by "Jinyang Jyan" this time is a kind of creation of people, so as to directly obtain traffic. The role of the persona is to obtain stable traffic, obtain accurate fans in their vertical fields, improve their ability to bring goods and attract fans to reward, these are one link after another.

Zhu Wei agreed with the relevant measures taken by the platform, but he also reminded that it is necessary to consider whether such bloggers' front-end accounts are banned, and whether background users or registrants must also be included in the "blacklist". Otherwise, he may open the trumpet somewhere else. In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the MCN organization behind the Internet celebrity, that is, the relevant resource management team, such accounts are generally supported and managed by MCN institutions, and the responsibility should be linked to MCN institutions and other related accounts of such MCN.

"MCN has now incubated many accounts like this, and many of the various fake personas are the ideas and recommendations of MCN behind them, and they are also the traffic pushed by MCN to this kind of account."

Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star News Reporter Fu Yao Zhao Qian Intern Wang Mingli