The "Fat Cat" incident reversed, and Peking University was forced to refute the rumors... Who will deal with the "traffic promoters"?

On May 19, as the Chongqing police announced the detailed investigation results that lasted for half a month, the "Fat Cat" incident took a dramatic turn. The woman, Tan, did not constitute a fraud. The previous online discussions and crusade about "fishing for women" finally came to an end. The heated discussion that has dominated the screen for many days has no factual basis.

When netizens who refuted unreasonable truths, acted for justice, and showed love through the screen were instantly reduced to "meat-eaters", the public's sympathy and sense of justice were once again consumed. In the current Internet context, it is not uncommon for abnormal traffic to disregard moral bottom lines before the truth comes.

Recently, "Peking University's exceptional admission of Guo Youcai" was also revealed to be the result of abnormal traffic "drumming and spreading rumors". Looking carefully at the evolution of this news information, I found that it was originally a short video advertisement for adult training, but after many netizens reprocessed, discussed, and interpreted it, it finally became "Peking University wants to break the rules." "Admit Guo Youcai", forcing Peking University to come forward to refute the rumors.

Before that, the controversial "Qin Lang lost his homework" incident even lasted for nearly two months on various platforms in the form of a "series". From fabricating a video about "primary school students losing their homework books in Paris" to successfully mobilizing the whole society to find the owner of the homework books, this farce ended with the video poster's Douyin account being permanently banned and his company being administratively fined. In the typical case of "Qinglang Pujiang" recently announced by the Cyberspace Administration of Shanghai Municipal Committee, there is also a similar hype incident by cyber troll gangs - under the combined effect of information asymmetry, self-media hype, public emotion catalysis and social media amplification effect , the incident of "4-year-old girl missing at Nanhui Beach" gradually evolved into a conspiracy theory, which caused great mental pressure and secondary harm to the girl's parents. It also misled the public and caused people to misunderstand the truth. After investigation, it was found that the registrants of more than ten related self-media accounts that spread false posts about this incident were all employees of a network technology company in Shandong. They registered accounts on major platforms and used "shock media" and "title party" around social hot spots. Publishing false negative information through methods such as "gaining eyeballs" is also a way for them to make money. On the topic of "4-year-old girl lost at Nanhui Beach", they used AI to mass-produce false posts to continue the hype, and made an illegal profit of more than 40,000 yuan in five days.

Why is the "chicken feathers in one place" incident becoming more and more intense on the Internet? It is not difficult to find that the online public opinion black industry already has an effective operation path. Unlike in the past when self-media and Internet celebrity bloggers exaggerated facts and created topics and emotional confrontations in the crowd, it can be seen from this "longest official notification in history" that the "Fat Cat" incident was directly caused by "Fat Cat"'s sister Liu took the initiative to "plan". She repeatedly published personal privacy information such as "Fat Cat" and Tan's private chat records, transfer screenshots, etc. through her Douyin account. At the same time, she registered another account to comment and guide in the comment area, and invited relatives and friends to follow up and comment. Exposed, and in the process contacted many people to write copywriting, discussed how to win the sympathy of netizens, and agreed to look "very tired, tired, and aggrieved" when taking selfies, and even purchased traffic on the platform to spread the word and increase the popularity. After a wave of "professional" operations, the number of fans on his account increased from 263 on April 22 to a maximum of more than 2.9 million.

Marx once said in "Das Kapital" that when profits reach 10%, some people are ready to take action; when profits reach 50%, some people dare to take risks; when profits reach 100%, they dare to trample all laws in the world; and when profits reach 100%, they dare to trample on all laws in the world; When the profit reaches 300%, he is not even afraid of going to the gallows. False information has repeatedly become a hot topic of national concern, and the "traffic economy" is undoubtedly a baton. Although the public finally got the truth in the reversal of facts, they fell into arguments and emotional confrontations over false information time and time again, and then "claimed to be fooled" when the situation was announced "half-way through". They should not be the target of the onlookers. No choice.

The chaotic order of cyberspace and the standardized and industrialized traffic harvesting scheme test the wisdom and conscience of individuals and platforms. How to say no to the bottomless "traffic supremacy"? Every responsible individual, self-media, news organization and platform must exercise restraint and prevent following the trend from fueling abnormal traffic and leaving "feathers everywhere". As all kinds of information distribution centers, major platforms must carefully study the whole story of every public opinion reversal, use technical means to fulfill the platform's audit responsibilities, and reduce the continued occurrence of similar typical cases of "creating traffic, watching traffic, and consuming traffic", and provide a basis for Make more efforts to purify cyberspace.