Xinhua News Agency, Jinan, October 22nd Title: Oats are carcinogenic and salt is toxic … … How is the food safety rumor from the media "explosive" concocted?
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters Wang Yang and Bao Xiaojing
Oats cause cancer and salt is toxic … … In many online media, food safety rumors emerge one after another. Some old rumors, even after being refuted by experts, have come back after a period of time, with a reading volume of more than 100,000, causing people’s anxiety.
The "2017 Food Rumor Governance Report" shows that WeChat is the main platform for the spread of food rumors, accounting for 72%; Followed by Weibo, accounting for 21%.
A survey by Xinhua Viewpoint reporter found that the use of self-media rumors has shown a trend of corporatization, forming an industrial model of "profiting from rumors".
Characteristics of self-media rumors: title thriller, video presentation, no time and place
Recently, the reporter received reports from the masses that many WeChat WeChat official account, such as "Keeping in good health by traditional Chinese medicine", "Dont Ask For Help with all diseases" and "Chinese boss", had false statements about food.
Mr. Liu, a citizen of Jinan, said that reading the article published by "Chinese boss" is "spreading! 43 kinds of oatmeal in the world may cause cancer! Don’t give it to children! " Later, I found that I had oatmeal of the brand mentioned in the article at home, and I threw it away out of panic. A few days later, he saw Zhao Lichao, a professor of food science at South China Agricultural University, who published a rumor article on WeChat WeChat official account’s "All People Are True": "Glyphosate in cereal is not carcinogenic, so buy it." Mr. Liu said that some media are too unreliable and cause unnecessary troubles to the people.
Zhang Linlin, a 28-year-old citizen of Jinan, said that because her mother believed in all kinds of food rumors, after seeing that "potassium ferrocyanide in salt is harmful to human body" a while ago, she ate vegetables without salt at home for several months.
Ma Zhiying, director of the Food Safety Professional Committee of Shanghai Food Society, said that many food rumors forwarded from the media were absurd and unscientific, which deepened consumers’ distrust of food safety, discredited the food industry and damaged the credibility of government departments.
The reporter’s analysis of many self-media rumors about food safety in recent years found that these rumors are often spread by means of video, lacking basic elements such as time and place, emphasizing the serious consequences, and deliberately sensationalizing and mystifying in title production to attract the attention of the audience. For example, "Don’t eat XXX", "Top Ten Anti-cancer Foods" and "Shocked, a certain food turned out to be … …” And so on, often become network explosions.
Why are rumors emerging one after another? According to the police, the threshold for creating online rumors is low, and they are forwarded by WeChat group, friends circle, WeChat official account, online forums, Weibo, etc., with fast spread and wide influence. Because it is difficult to obtain evidence and trace the source, it is not easy to detect the case of food safety network rumors.
The "rumor processing factory" is corporatized, and WeChat fans can receive advertisements when they reach 5,000.
The reporter’s investigation found that some rumors produced by the media were aimed at extortion and deliberately discrediting competitors.
Some rumourers fabricated facts out of thin air, directed and performed themselves, concocted "evidence" such as pictures and videos, and blackmailed them. For example, last year, several videos showing "plastic laver" were widely spread on the Internet, which triggered a round of "plastic laver" storm. After eating laver produced by a food company in Jinjiang, Wang, the rumour maker, guessed that these lavers were made of plastic, so he directed employees to shoot videos and upload them to friends. Later, Wang contacted the victim company to ask for RMB 100,000, threatening to make a big deal if the company didn’t want to solve it.
In addition, some companies use self-media rumors to discredit their competitors. During the interview, many food companies first pointed their doubts at competitors for some concentrated online rumors. Wang Sixin, a professor at China Communication University, said that there are indeed some competitors with ulterior motives who deliberately spread rumors through smearing, with the intention of gaining improper market interests.
The reporter’s investigation also found that since the media "rumor processing factory" has formed a corporatization operation to attract traffic and earn advertising fees, the same company often owns many WeChat official account.
In September 2017, in a case judged by the court in Helinger County, Inner Mongolia, Quanzhou Jianghong Network Technology Co., Ltd. released a video of "Mengniu pure milk was found to have exceeded the standard". This video was clicked and forwarded a lot, and it was forwarded by 1,073 WeChat WeChat official account only ten days after its release, which made people mistakenly think that it was a recent event, and several WeChat official account forwarded the video more than 100,000 times. Among them, there are five WeChat WeChat official account managed by Jianghong Company, such as Minnan First Hand, Shishi Shi, First Hand, News Breaking and Hot Street Shooting. The person in charge of the company said that this was done to expand popularity, increase clicks and earn income.
According to the reporter’s investigation, when many WeChat WeChat official account or Weibo accounts push such rumors, there are often advertisements at the top or bottom, and even readers can get some benefits by reading and forwarding them.
According to an operator of the media company, some media and advertisers have formed an interest chain. When the reading volume and the number of fans are high, advertisers will come to the door. When the number of fans reaches 5,000, it can become the main traffic advertisement, and each fan can receive advertisements ranging from 0.2 yuan to 0.5 yuan. If there are 10,000 fans, you can charge 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan for each promotion.
It is also a common means to spread rumors from the media by keeping up with news hotspots. For example, swine fever has appeared in some areas this year, and there are rumors from the media that "eating pork has been poisoned"; Some media reported that cheap duck meat is a fast-growing duck, and there was an official who immediately fabricated an imaginary "expert" to make up the harm of eating these duck meat.
The field of food safety has become the "hardest hit" by media rumors.
The field of food safety has become the "hardest hit" spread by the media. Relevant data show that food safety information accounts for 45% of online rumors. In 2017, there were more than 50 cases (times) of food rumor punishment and accountability only in public reports, among which 9 parties were investigated for criminal responsibility, 40 were sentenced to administrative detention, 7 were sentenced to administrative fines and other penalties.
How to reduce "anxiety on the tip of the tongue"? Experts said that first of all, we should strengthen network supervision, respond to complaints from netizens in a timely manner, strengthen the monitoring of explosive articles and self-media, and timely interview or title if abnormalities are found.
Chen Junshi, general consultant of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center, said: "People are easily misled by rumors, and the key lies in the asymmetry of information in the field of food safety. It is necessary to build a platform to disseminate correct food safety knowledge and information in a timely manner to fill the information vacuum. "
Kai Zhong, deputy director of Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, said, "From the government level, it is necessary to increase the transparency of work and accept social supervision in a proactive manner."
"It is a better scheme to establish a multi-co-governance mechanism of online food safety rumors led by the government and coordinated by enterprises, experts and scholars, media, non-profit organizations and the public." Ye Zhonghua, a professor at the School of Public Policy and Management of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.