"Poor and kind girls" sell "original ecological agricultural products", ?—— reveal the black chain behind the miserable live broadcast
Behind the strong life of the girl with a "tragic background", the "moving story" is a script that has been set a long time ago; the "original ecological agricultural products of Daliangshan" sold under the banner of "helping farmers" are actually purchased from the wholesale market at a low price...... Recently, the People's Court of Zhaojue County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, pronounced a verdict in the first instance of the "Liangshan Mengyang" and "Liangshan Aze" cases, and eight people were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 9 months to 1 year and 2 months for the crime of false advertising, and fines ranging from 20,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan.
Xinhua News Agency reporters investigated and found that behind a series of illegal behaviors such as "Internet celebrity" live broadcasts and false agricultural assistance in recent years is a complete set of profit-making operation models.
1
"Poor and Kind Girl" is a pose
"Raw agricultural products" come from the wholesale market
A young Yi girl named "Liangshan Mengyang", who has lost both her parents and needs to pull several younger siblings to grow up, wears shabby clothes and has a dilapidated house behind her...... pretending to be miserable and laughing at life, he soon accumulated a large number of "fans".
Soon after, the girl started a live broadcast with goods. In a live broadcast, she peeled off the pecans in her hand and said: "Don't give me gifts, you use the money you give me gifts to buy pecans, which is equivalent to supporting a lot of uncles and aunts on our side." ”
However, some netizens soon questioned the quality of the agricultural products she sold. After visiting the site, some netizens found that not only are her parents alive, but she also dresses cleanly and exquisitely, and she also goes out to high-end places from time to time.
"Posing for a photo! fake!" Some netizens left a message in the live broadcast room of "Liangshan Mengyang" and reported it to the platform. In the face of doubts, the anchor kicked netizens out of the live broadcast room, and hired an online "water army" to attack the whistleblower......
"Same recipe, familiar taste", "Liangshan Mengyang" routine is not new. As early as 2016, the Liangshan Prefecture police cracked down on a group of anchors who went to Liangshan countryside to pose for photos and engage in "fake charity". "Live streaming" is an "upgraded version" that has profited from the public's attention to Liangshan in recent years.
In June 2023, the Zhaojue County Public Security Bureau filed a case for investigation of "Liangshan Mengyang", and an MCN (multi-channel network) organization, Chengdu Aowei Culture Media Co., Ltd., surfaced.
The police told reporters that this agency "attracted fans" through pre-set script posing, and incubated two "Internet celebrity" accounts on the short video platform, "Liangshan Mengyang" and "Liangshan Aze", and then began to use the accounts to live broadcast goods.
"They brought pecans, snow petrels, safflower, fritillary, morels and so on. Wang Hu, a police officer from the Zhaojue County Public Security Bureau, said, "Liangshan does produce walnuts and a small amount of gastrodia, but safflower and snow swallows are not special products here at all." ”
The police found that most of the so-called "original agricultural products" came from wholesale markets in Chengdu. "Taking pecans as an example, the purchase price is about 5 yuan per catty, and the price of selling to netizens ranges from 10 to 13 yuan. Wang Hu said. In the meantime, MCN agencies also hired online "water army" to create the illusion of explosive models and order grabbing in the live broadcast room to induce consumers to buy. According to the police investigation, the MCN agency used this routine to sell more than 30 million yuan and illegally make more than 10 million yuan.
The picture shows a screenshot of the live video of "Liangshan Mengyang".
This method is the same as the "Internet celebrity" anchors "Zhao Linger" and "Liangshan Qubu" who were sentenced in December 2023 - MCN agencies contacted the supply chain in Sichuan, Jiangsu, Yunnan and other places, purchased honey, walnuts and other agricultural and sideline products at low prices, counterfeited the trademark of "Daliangshan Special Agricultural Products", and sold counterfeit products to more than 20 provinces across the country with shoddy and fake products, with sales exceeding 10 million yuan.
2
Behind the "miserable sale" with goods
There is an industrial chain
The front-end creates "character design" and incubates "Internet celebrities", the mid-end script shooting, e-commerce operation, and the supply of agricultural products at the end and the realization of traffic...... The relevant police of the Liangshan Prefecture Public Security Bureau told reporters that in the process of investigating similar cases, it was found that a complete set of operation models had been formed behind the fake live broadcast of helping farmers.
First of all, the behind-the-scenes team looks for young men and women with the potential of "Internet celebrities", tailors "personalities" for them, and writes scripts. For example, "Liangshan Qubu" is a simple Yi youth, and "Zhao Ling'er" is a kind girl who "helps Daliangshan". At first, they used dramatic episodes such as chance encounters, rubbing rice, and delivering water to attract traffic, and after having a certain number of fans, they began to shoot videos of harvesting walnuts and honey in the mountains, paving the way for live broadcasting.
Secondly, these videos often accurately hit the social mood by arranging specific elements: the remote and isolated mountainous environment, the tattered clothes and bright smile of the heroine, the dilapidated house, the simple and innocent children...... Coupled with the dramatic script and documentary shooting techniques, as well as a large number of "water army" brush praise, under a series of routines, many people were deeply moved and hurriedly paid out of their pockets to actively "help farmers".
It is understood that the real name of "Liangshan Mengyang" is A Ximou, and her family used to be a poor household with a registered card, and she has been lifted out of poverty many years ago; the dilapidated house filmed in her video is a farmhouse in the village that has long been abandoned.
The picture shows the "character design" and live broadcast script customized by the behind-the-scenes team for "Zhao Linger".
(Photo courtesy of Zhaojue County Public Security Bureau)
The miserable live broadcast stung the hearts of the vast number of cadres and masses in Liangshan. "Since poverty alleviation, Liangshan has changed with each passing day. MCN agencies use the stereotype of poverty and isolation in Liangshan to create a 'persona', which deceives the majority of consumers and hurts the local cadres and masses. A grassroots cadre in Zhaojue County said.
3
Strengthen the supervision of MCN institutions
Standardize the live broadcast of agricultural assistance
The Zhaojue County People's Court pronounced a judgment in the first instance and found that MCN Company purchased non-Liangshan agricultural and sideline products at a low price, and falsely advertised and sold the goods in large quantities through Axi XX ("Liangshan Mengyang") and Adi XX ("Liangshan Aze") on the Douyin platform in the form of live streaming, and its conduct constituted the crime of false advertising as provided for in Article 222 of the Criminal Law.
It is understood that since 2023, the Internet Information Department of Liangshan Prefecture, together with the departments of public security, market supervision, agriculture and rural affairs, and commerce, has carried out the special action of "Clear and Strict Rectification of the 'Self-Media' Chaos", and severely cracked down on illegal activities such as miserable auctions, false agricultural assistance, and pseudo-charity.
Experts pointed out that at present, the live broadcast of agricultural assistance has played a positive role in rural revitalization, and it is necessary to increase support for the formal live broadcast of agricultural assistance.
Wang Yanlong, a professor at the School of Literature and Journalism at Sichuan University, said that in order to make huge profits, some MCN institutions pursue the "traffic theory", deceiving netizens by posing for photos, spreading rumors, and fabricating scripts, challenging public order and good customs and even the bottom line of the law. "The regulatory authorities should increase the management of MCN institutions, establish effective industry norms, and decisively take punishment measures against institutions that violate laws and regulations. Internet platforms have the responsibility to defend their territory, fully perform their obligations to review content, and resist behaviors that have no lower limit and no bottom line to gain traffic. ”
Wang Hu, the policeman handling the case, said: "'Internet celebrities' must work in good faith and don't test the bottom line of the law. I also hope that the majority of consumers will be vigilant, improve their screening ability, and do not blindly believe in 'Internet celebrity' anchors. ”
A little more news
Use the network to "clear" to treat the "sinking" of goods
Cyberspace is the common spiritual home of the vast number of netizens. On March 15, the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference on the 2024 "Qing Lang" series of actions, summarizing the good achievements of the "Qing Lang" special action in the past year and deploying the key areas and key links of this year's special action. A series of effective remediation data is sonorous and powerful, releasing a clear direction to strengthen cyberspace governance and promote the formation of a good cyber ecology.
Carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future, and continue to struggle. In 2024, the "Qing Lang" series of special actions will closely focus on the new expectations and new requirements of the people, comprehensively cover key areas of the Internet, focus on researching and solving new problems and risks in the online ecology, and focus on 10 rectification tasks. In the "Rectification of False and Vulgar Chaos in the Field of Online Live Broadcasting", the issue of "false propaganda in live streaming by exaggerating the 'efficacy' of goods" was mentioned for the first time.
The digital blue ocean is changing with each passing day, and network problems are also emerging. In March 2024, the "Analysis Report on Public Opinion on Consumer Rights Protection with Live Streaming (2023)" released by Beijing Sunshine Consumer Big Data Research Institute and other institutions shows that public opinion on consumer rights protection is mainly reflected in eight aspects: false publicity, product quality, price misleading, uncivilized delivery, delivery problems, returns, sales of prohibited goods, and inducement of over-the-counter transactions. Among them, the problem of false propaganda ranks first.
The internet has a memory. Flipping through the "roster" of the anchor with goods, there was an Internet celebrity store live broadcast room that forged the effect of self-heating rice side dishes, falsely claimed that the rice used was authentic Wuchang rice, deceived consumers to buy as much as 916,000 yuan, and was administratively punished by the Qingdao Market Supervision Bureau of Shandong Province with an administrative penalty ......of 250,000 yuan; Facts have proved that the more the Internet develops, the more important it is to purify the network ecology. Prescribing the right medicine and striking hard has become a top priority.
Previously, a number of management regulations, such as the "Provisions on the Administration of Internet Live Streaming Services", the "Provisions on the Governance of the Online Information Content Ecosystem", and the "Measures for the Administration of Online Live Streaming Marketing (Trial)", have been implemented one after another. Now, the "Clear Action" is precisely implementing policies and the right time. "Clear" aims at the deep-seated contradictions in the chaos of the Internet, and "Clean Network" points to the practical problems that the people have strong reactions to.
Specifically, in the live broadcast of goods, the head anchor strengthens the restraint on himself and his team, and assumes the responsibility of product selection and quality review; the live broadcast platform has built a governance model for the random inspection and quality inspection of live broadcast products on the platform, and the factory inspection and warehouse inspection, and establishes and improves and strictly implements the relevant management system; at the same time, it strengthens social supervision and responds to public problems in a timely manner. Cohesion can improve effectiveness. If there are fewer live broadcast routines, there will be more social trust.
The light at the end of the candle increases the brilliance of the sun and the moon, and the dust is subtle, nourishing the mountains and seas. From clarifying work goals to decomposing key tasks, and then to refining work measures, we believe that with the launch of the "Qing Lang" series of special actions in 2024, the brighter the sky and the clearer the air, the vision of "building a beautiful spiritual home online" is just around the corner.