Open the Baidu App, and the edge video of the recommended channel on the home page is very "spicy"; Every night, many urban post bars are swiped by watermarked selfies of beautiful women, which are used to publish prostitution advertisements or induce downloads of pornographic apps; In some of the more intimate corners, there are even people who carry out escort chat services with obscene content and buy and sell pornographic videos...... Recently, some netizens reported to the New Yellow River reporter that the Baidu App is full of a lot of vulgar information, hiding a lot of pornographic content, which seriously affects the user experience, and even minors can easily access it.
In this regard, the New Yellow River reporter's investigation found that in the Baidu App, which integrates search and information, the Baijia account is full of all kinds of vulgar content, and relevant content will be recommended for the first time you register and use it; In Baidu Tieba, once known as the "world's largest Chinese community", pornographic advertisements and prostitution information have been repeatedly banned, and even "small bar owners" who are managers have participated in it.
In response to the above problems, the staff of Baidu's public service hotline responded that the content of the Baidu App recommendation page is pushed by the system data, and users can click "not interested" and "not watch" if they don't want to see it, or they can report it directly. As for the pornographic information that appeared in the post bar, the staff member said that users can report it, and the review results of the post bar staff shall prevail. "Everyone's point of view is different, some people think it's appropriate and some people don't think it's appropriate, there's no way to judge. If the content does violate the rules, Tieba will deal with it according to the agreement, or even ban the account. ”
Vulgar side accounts swipe the screen, click "not interested" is still recommended
"Who will take care of Baidu's vulgar edge content on the screen?" Recently, some netizens provided several relevant screenshots to the New Yellow River reporter, and the screenshots show that most of the entire Baidu information page are short videos related to "sex", such as "Little couples do bad things in the middle of the night...... "'sperm donation' process, you don't know the knowledge of sexes", "Can a man be twice in a row" and so on.
A few days ago, the reporter as a new user, the first time to download and register to log in to Baidu App, after the cold start, the reporter found that the recommendation, discovery, video and other pages, in addition to travel, film and television, history and other types of information, mixed with several "soft pornography" content, it seems very "abrupt", especially in the video channel. The reporter randomly clicked on one or two edge rubbing videos, exited after browsing, and re-refreshed the page and found that there are more and more recommendations for this kind of edge rubbing videos: there are pretending to use underwear models to share their outfits and scratch their heads in front of the camera; There are those who share gender knowledge through the oral description of the "title party" on the grounds of popular science; There are also those who specially intercept the "bed scenes" in the movie clips and indiscriminately call the title "Zhang Guan Li Dai". In addition, large-scale photographs and plot depictions of erotic novels are also common. The reporter found that the above types of content were all released by individual Baijia accounts, and some Baijia accounts were marked with MCN institutions, and account fans ranged from hundreds to hundreds of thousands.
The reporter randomly opened a Baijiahao homepage named "Bai Jingting" on the recommendation page, with 91,000 fans, and the more than 1,800 videos released by it were almost all pictures of women wearing underwear. The reporter found that there are a large number of similar accounts in Baidu's Baijia account, such as "Jiang Yutong", "Heart Dance Meng", "Zhang Yuting", "Yanyan Little Rich Woman" and so on. In order to pass the platform's review, many videos are marked with the description of "normal outfit display, no bad guidance".
In the account named "Yanyan Little Rich Woman", a total of 104 pieces of content were posted, all of which were short videos narrated by female bloggers, and the cover title used "Husband and wife exchange", "New den of prostitution", "Prostitution code words", "What to do if girlfriend and brother get together", etc. Many netizens left messages saying, "Thank you for sharing, it's easy to find next time", "I think you're promoting your business and popularizing, how can ordinary people know this". Some of the videos of the account "Spinach WHW" use the excuse of sharing gender knowledge to attract users to click, and a short video on the homepage is titled "Men are eating ...... outside", and the content is actually emotional chicken soup for the soul.
For the above content recommended by Baidu App, the reporter clicked on the "X" number in the lower right corner of the video, and clicked "Not interested" according to the prompt, and after the prompt was selected, "This kind of recommendation will be reduced for you", or directly select "Report", and this kind of recommended content will be slightly reduced. However, when the Baidu App was restarted after a while, the content of rubbing soft pornography reappeared.
Tieba hides pornographic advertisements, and some bar owners publish illegal information
The reporter's investigation found that another important part of Baidu's content ecology - Baidu's "Tieba" also hides a large number of obscure soft pornography and even pornographic content.
In many post bars named after cities, at night, posts with photos of beautiful women start to swipe the screen, directing users to WeChat, QQ or other external links. At about 1 o'clock in the morning on February 11th, the homepage of "Pingdingshan Bar", a large number of beautiful photos continued to swipe the screen, "[email protected]" released a beautiful selfie with a WeChat watermark, the reporter scanned the QR code on his avatar after adding the WeChat account, and popped up a site webpage that imitated WeChat conversations, showing a large number of obscene pictures, and at the same time the page guided users to copy the link to download the App, saying that they could arbitrarily "choose their favorite young lady". Opening the link in a browser reveals an app download screen with a large number of pornographic photos and prostitution information.
At about 1 a.m. on February 24th, the user "will enter the wine glass and do not stop" in the "Shijiazhuang bar" posted a photo of a beautiful woman with a QQ watermark, and the reporter searched and entered the QQ group called "Paste a good place", and the group housekeeper told "contact online customer service when placing an order". After adding customer service, the other party asked for the location information and sent a price list for soliciting prostitution. The reporter paid attention to a number of city post bars in the investigation, and every time he clicked to follow, "Post must read" popped up, which specifically reminded "Prohibition of pornography and vulgarity: It is strictly forbidden to publish pornographic transactions and improper dating information" and so on. However, "Hangzhou Bar", "Guilin Bar", "Guiyang Bar", "Zhengzhou Bar" and other post bars still have pornographic advertisements to attract traffic.
In addition to pornographic advertisements, the phenomenon of discussing prostitution stories and prostitution venues is also very common in Tieba, and many Tieba have a large number of code words with "JS (technician)" and "car repair" as homonyms, sharing "experience" in a matter-of-fact manner. The number of "Shajing Bar" bar friends has reached 950,000, and when you click on its homepage, a large number of posts with "bed photos" to share your experience come into view.
Some post bars are more hidden, under the banner of "mission" and "business", carrying out escort chat services containing obscene content, buying and selling "original" clothing and pornographic videos. In the "astringent bar", "Xiaowen willow bar", "play with the selected bar" and other post bars, the followers reached 320,000, 300,000, and 1.03 million respectively, and the 3 post bars have a common small bar owner "Shi Qi" (self-proclaimed "Seventeen"), she posted advertisements in the bar's built-in top posts and essence posts, guiding netizens to add QQ groups. The reporter joined the QQ group named "Seventeen Bar Owners (4)" according to the prompts, the group file is a price list with a clear price, the group administrator "Seventeen" took the initiative to find the reporter to ask if there was a need, the reporter spent 40 yuan to ask for a "self-recorded video", the other party was very cautious, and it was sent successfully to the QQ trumpet. The four videos received by the reporter were all self-made obscene and pornographic videos, and the pictures were unsightly. The group of "Seventeen Bar Owners (4)" has as many as 1,405 members.
In the above 3 post bars, a large number of users post "sexually suggestive" content such as uniforms, loli suits, and stockings every day, as well as "customer" orders. The bar rules of "Xiaowen Liuba" not only do not remind you to prohibit sex trade, but also remind that "you must add a green prefix to find and receive videos".
Recommended content regardless of age, parents call for "minor mode"
On social platforms, it is not uncommon to complain about Baidu's recommendation of vulgar rubbing information. Some netizens posted that during the winter vacation, their children had swiped a lot of vulgar videos pushed by Baidu, "Baidu App doesn't seem to have a youth guardian mode, and when children use Baidu to search and watch badminton videos, they are pushed to rub the video." Parents need to be careful."
The reporter opened the Baidu App and did not find the option of "Youth Guardian Mode". In the "Feedback and Protection" column, look for functions related to youth mode, and it will display "Hello, Baidu App does not support youth mode for the time being, please pay attention to it in the future".
On March 4th, the reporter called Baidu's manual customer service to inquire about related questions, and the staff responded that Baidu App has not opened youth mode for the time being, and it is recommended that minors use another product of Baidu, "'Simple search' is the same as the search function of Baidu App, and there is only a search function, no other information will be recommended, and it is more suitable for children." As for whether Baidu App will open youth mode in the future, the staff member said: "So far, we have no relevant notice. ”
"There are many types of platform recommendation algorithms, and generally speaking, the most mainstream of information and social media apps are collaborative filtering algorithms and content-based recommendation algorithms. As long as you click or stay on something, the app will record your actions. A Feng (pseudonym), an algorithm engineer who has been in the industry for many years, told the New Yellow River reporter that the platform analyzes people's behavior and preferences through the model by capturing user data and historical behavior, recommending content of interest, or identifying the relevance of similar users, and recommending popular and similar information. For business platforms, the use of algorithms can increase user stickiness and obtain more traffic, thereby increasing revenue.
However, if the platform has long delighted users with eye-catching and inferior content, and frequently pushed homogeneous content with the help of algorithms, users will often fall into an "information cocoon", and the platform will also become a "hotbed" for the breeding and dissemination of illegal and bad information. In Ah Feng's view, in recent years, the characteristics of pornography circularization and concealment are prominent, and bloggers or anchors on some platforms frequently "play pornography", also known as "soft pornography", with various means to earn traffic and get tips, this kind of soft pornography will have a luring effect on people with weak willpower, especially minors are easy to go astray after being exposed to this kind of soft pornography.
The "Provisions on the Administration of Algorithmic Recommendations for Internet Information Services" clarifies the principle that algorithmic recommendation services are upward and benevolent, and proposes that algorithmic recommendation service providers should establish and complete a number of measures such as a database of features used to identify illegal and negative information, prominently identify algorithm-generated synthetic information, strengthen the ecological management of layout pages, and actively present mainstream value-oriented information in key links, to encourage the spread of positive energy that conforms to mainstream value-orientation. On November 12, 2024, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly launched the special action "Clear and Clear: Governance of Typical Problems in Online Platform Algorithms" to focus on rectifying typical problems existing in online platform algorithms. The main tasks include rectifying the problem of "information cocoons" and inducing addiction, increasing the transparency of the list, cracking down on the manipulation of the list, preventing the blind pursuit of interests and infringing on the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment, strictly prohibiting the use of algorithms to carry out big data "killing", strengthening algorithms to serve for good, protecting the lawful rights and interests of netizens, and implementing the main responsibility for algorithm security.
Journalists experience the reporting process, and it is difficult to "transfer to labor".
The New Yellow River reporter learned that in recent years, the Baidu platform has actively responded to the Internet "Qinglang" series of special actions to comprehensively investigate illegal content. On February 19 this year, the article "Baidu Qinglang Action: Pornographic Content Strikes Hard" published on the Internet wrote: Baidu platform actively responded to the special action of "Qinglang Rectification of Information Content Problems in the Same City Section" and comprehensively cleaned up the illegal content in the same city section. Since the launch of the special operation, Baidu has dealt with 16,000 pieces of illegal content and closed 1,544 illegal accounts, including users posting same-city dating content on the platform, implying pornographic prostitution service code words, and posting large-scale exposure photos showing sexual innuendo and sexual temptation postures; Posting information on location recommendations for pornographic services, etc.
Baidu Tieba "pornography" related news has also been reported frequently. Through the search, it was found that as early as 2014, some media exposed that 52 websites such as Baidu Tieba were investigated by relevant departments for being involved in crime, violence and pornography; In 2016, the Cyberspace Administration of China interviewed the person in charge of Baidu on outstanding problems such as obscenity, pornography, false advertising and other illegal information in Baidu Tieba; In 2017, Baidu Tieba was interviewed by the Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee for serious violations and bad information. According to a case disclosed by the Shanghai Chongming Procuratorate, in 2021, Ye Moumou found a large number of prostitution posts in the Tieba he created, and in order to make profits, he diverted prostitutes from Baidu Tieba to the WeChat group, and charged a certain "group entry fee", which essentially built a communication platform for prostitution and prostitution. In 2024, the Shanghai Chongming Procuratorate will prosecute Ye Moumou for the crime of illegally using information networks, and finally Ye Moumou was sentenced to one year and three months in prison and fined 20,000 yuan.
Recently, the reporter called Baidu's public service hotline to give feedback on the above pornography-related problems in Baidu App. The staff told reporters that the content recommended by Baidu App is pushed by system data, and if you don't want to see it, you can directly click "Not interested" and "Don't watch", or you can report it directly, and the system will no longer push relevant content. When the reporter said that even if the above operations were performed, the next time he opened the App, he would still receive relevant pushes, the staff member said that he could give feedback to the online customer service. Regarding the question of whether the content violates the rules, the staff member said that the content of the creators of Baijiahao is jointly reviewed by the platform and manually reviewed, and whether there is a violation is subject to the judgment results of Baijiahao. Users can report the pornographic information that appears in the post bar, and the review results of the post bar staff shall also prevail. "Everybody's point of view is different, some people think it's appropriate, some people think it's not, there's no way to judge. But if the content does violate the rules, Tieba will deal with it according to the agreement, or even ban the account. ”
According to the staff's prompt, the reporter tried to communicate with the online customer service through the Baidu App and reported the illegal content according to the guidelines. As of March 11, the "Spinach WHW" account has been judged to have violated the content and has been dealt with by the platform; Accounts such as "Bai Jingting", "Jiang Yutong", "Xinwumeng", "Zhang Yuting", and "Yanyan Little Rich Woman" are still displayed normally. At the same time, the reporter found that when giving feedback to Baidu's online customer service, there was only a reply from the intelligent robot, and it was still impossible to enter the manual customer service dialogue after many attempts.