On last year's National Day, a 4-year-old girl in Shanghai went missing while playing on the beach, which made many people always "worry about their hearts" during the holiday. What is even more infuriating is that all kinds of "news" such as "the girl was discarded", "the girl's father is a stepfather", "the girl was taken to Wenzhou", "the girl's mother and her husband murdered the girl" and so on soon appeared in cyberspace, which confused many people and caused serious secondary harm to the parties concerned.
In fact, the so-called "discarding theory" and "stepfather saying" are just rumors hyped up by a 12-member illegal gang. According to the recent news obtained by the media from the Shanghai police, the team has frequently spoken out and repeatedly become invisible in various national social hot events, relying on false negative news to earn eyeballs and traffic, and "earned" more than one million readers and illegally made more than 40,000 yuan on the "Shanghai girl" alone.
In recent years, this kind of eating human blood steamed buns has become more and more intense. In this era of self-media, everyone can concoct "news". As a result, some self-media with the goal of making profits have done everything they can in order to attract attention, from the pretentious mystery of "blockbuster news" at two ends in three days, to the "shocking body" such as "scared to pee", and then to the "warm wind" of "tears bursting" and "crying" at every turn, turning over tricks to stimulate public emotions.
However, the "headline party" is only the "initial level" of self-media operation, and the "senior" team has begun to "produce news" and gradually form an industrial chain.
For example, some people directed and acted in their own actions, fabricating stories such as "police cars hitting people", "hospital baby abuse", "terrorist attacks on the subway", etc., or claiming to be kindergarten teachers feeding contraceptive pills to young children; some people reversed right and wrong, and after a girl in Chongzhou, Chengdu was bitten by a dog, they publicized that the girl was the first to do it......
They all have universal commonalities: if there is a hot spot, they will rub the hot spot, and if there is no hot spot, they will create a hot spot, and many unscrupulous self-media will start to make up stories when they smell the signs of traffic, amplify contradictions, cater to emotions, jump left and right on the pain points of human nature, and create rumors without a bottom line.
Sometimes, some of the "small fights" of the self-media are also disgusting. Through sensitive issues, three or two sentences of "small composition" provoked antagonistic emotions, what "saved money for ten years to treat my mother's illness, and was taken by my younger brother to buy a house", "blind date, the little fairy opened her mouth to ask for a million dowry"...... Anyway, these people cleverly take advantage of social attention, treat jokes as facts, create public opinion garbage, and embezzle public resources in a grand manner.
No matter how big or small the matter is, the essence of these "fake news" is to turn the public's simple sense of fairness and justice into a "cash cow" for themselves to obtain traffic and money.
Self-media can give ordinary people the right to speak out, but "people with hearts" use this right to harm the public and private, and the damage to society is invisible and far-reaching.
Now, we already know that "Qin Lang" is fake, and "the father of the lost girl is a stepfather" is also fake, but the social sentiment used by the criminals is real, and the damage to social credit and the network ecology is real. The rifts between people caused by emotional provocations and plot reversals again and again require huge costs to repair. False ugliness hurts real society.
What is particularly vigilant is that with the gradual promotion of AI applications, all kinds of "fake news" and "yellow news" can be mass-produced, and the "encouragement" of some platform algorithms "traffic-only theory" has tempted countless self-media to "defy the law", and many fake accounts can always "blow the spring breeze and give birth".
In recent years, the public security department and the internet information department have continuously increased the intensity of rectification. The cyberspace administration continues to investigate and deal with rumor-mongering accounts, and the Ministry of Public Security has proposed that 2024 will be the year of a special action to crack down on online rumors. It is necessary to make the "traffic scammers" receive corresponding punishments through the "Strike Hard" campaign again and again, so as to deter the rumor-mongers, and to clarify the boundaries and establish rules with strictly implemented, detailed and clear management rules.
Of course, to create a healthy and positive content ecosystem, platforms, media, and audiences also need to work together.
As a gatekeeper, the platform should strengthen the review and control of the published content, update and optimize the algorithm mechanism, so that the traffic can go to the places that really need to be paid attention to, and realize the science and technology for good;
Professional media should also uphold professionalism, not follow the trend of hype, and provide the public with reliable real news and positive opinions in the mixed online public opinion field;
At the same time, netizens can also take the initiative to participate, increase their vigilance against rumors spread by self-media, do not believe or follow the trend, and see content that is obviously rhythmic and rumor-mongering, and promptly refute and report it.
The Internet is a public space for everyone, not a toilet for some self-media to "talk about it everywhere".