Unveiling the Dark Industry Behind Corporate Rumors

• News
• 2024-05-12

A succession of rumors involving companies has left Zhang Fen, the public opinion director of a listed company with a market value of tens of billions, a bit annoyed.

"Online public opinion involving companies seems to be an unsolvable problem at present. Our company still has some resources, channels, and professional talents, but we still feel overwhelmed when dealing with corporate public opinion. It's hard to imagine how difficult it is for small and medium-sized enterprises to encounter rumors about their companies," Zhang Fen lamented to a reporter from China Economic Weekly.

Many interviewees told reporters that in the face of some trivial corporate news, companies have little energy to pay attention. However, some self-media matrixes are now repeatedly targeting companies to fabricate rumors and create trouble, smearing companies and entrepreneurs, in exchange for improper benefits, which has brought considerable trouble to companies. As the saying goes, "Rumors spread with a single mouth, but refuting them can break your legs."

Who is behind the creation and dissemination of these rumors? What are their purposes? Why is the situation becoming more and more severe? How does the underlying industry chain seek illegal benefits?

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Online rumors are increasingly troubling companies

In recent years, online rumors have shown a trend of proliferation. Data recently released by the Ministry of Public Security shows that since the beginning of this year, public security organs have investigated more than 22,000 cases of online rumors, legally dealt with more than 25,000 netizens who spread rumors, legally guided network operators to shut down more than 160,000 illegal and irregular accounts, and cleared more than 1.322 million pieces of rumor information.

Not only is the quantity large, but online rumors are also showing new characteristics. On August 27, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Wang Qiang, director of the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, pointed out: "In recent years, stimulated by 'traffic economy', the breadth of content, speed of transmission, update frequency, impact range, and social harmfulness of online rumors have all significantly increased."

These characteristics are particularly prominent in rumors involving companies.

In June of this year, a large medical device company in the South China region encountered infringement information harassment. At that time, one of the company's limb correction products was very popular in the market, but it was maliciously attacked by its competitors online and labeled with "intelligence tax" and other tags.

"We noticed the product's public opinion and urgently released clarification information. In less than two hours, the topic went viral on Weibo, which was very strange," said Fang Fang, the brand director of the company, to a reporter from China Economic Weekly. After public opinion investigation and analysis, they found that it was actually competitors who were behind the scenes, spending money to buy hot searches and artificially creating hot topics. "In order to reduce the impact of malicious attacks, the company can only spend money to sink the hot search. Around the ranking of the hot search list, our company and competitors have been playing a game of back and forth, and in the end, neither side has gained any benefits, but it has benefited the hot search platform," Fang Fang said.During interviews, reporters found that behind online corporate infringement information, there is not only the subjective malice of competitors but more often the intentional actions of self-media.

Some self-media, in pursuit of traffic and attention, maliciously edit and piece together corporate information for dissemination online. A retail department store listed company has been troubled by online rumors. Since 2021, the company has been mired in a debt crisis, and for a time, negative information about the actual controller and the listed company has been rampant online.

In late August, Peng Juan, the brand manager of the retail department store company, told reporters that around 2021, the enterprise faced unprecedented survival and operational pressure due to debt issues. At that time, many self-media did not verify and arbitrarily took false information about the enterprise from the internet, piecing together various rumors, which plunged the company and its boss into an endless whirlpool of public opinion.

Peng Juan still felt fear when recalling: "It's only in the past two years that the company's public sentiment has stabilized a bit. Between 2021 and 2022, I dealt with more than 1,000 pieces of bad information about our company through relevant departments. That experience is hard to look back on."

Who is the mastermind behind corporate rumors?

In the interview, many brand managers of large enterprises and listed companies mentioned one point: corporate infringement information ferments online, and there are often masterminds behind the scenes. These masterminds will use "internet water armies" to fan the flames.

This year, an elderly person in a certain province in North China died due to surgery. After the incident, the family found a certain internet influencer to expose the matter. The influencer forwarded the message without verifying it with the hospital, driving the fermentation of this medical accident online. In less than half a day, the incident quickly rose to the top of the Weibo hot search.

"After the medical accident Weibo topic was pushed to the hot search, we found the shadow of the 'internet water army'. In the same period, the same address IP appeared in the Weibo comment area, targeting the hospital with the same kind of negative comments. It was very obvious that someone was leading the rhythm and brushing traffic behind the scenes." Wang Zhen, the public opinion person in charge of the aforementioned hospital, said in an interview with reporters that at that time, they analyzed these highly similar comment information and speculated that there were internet pushers behind the development of public sentiment, so they collected evidence online in a targeted manner.

One detail is worth noting: some entertainment bloggers are also participating in the forwarding of related information on a large scale. As this medical accident was continuously amplified by internet influencers, the health department also got involved.

Zhang Fen told reporters that the internet has characteristics of openness, virtuality, and blurred regional differences. In this environment, on the one hand, it is easy for internet pushers to recruit water armies; on the other hand, water armies are more concealed when implementing improper actions, making them difficult to detect.The public security authorities have carried out a severe crackdown on internet water armies. "The Ministry of Public Security has attached great importance to this issue and has deployed public security organs across the country to continue conducting special actions against online rumors," said Wang Qiang. "We have deeply investigated the prominent illegal and criminal activities of internet water armies and MCN organizations that manipulate and hype behind the scenes. A total of 623 cases of this kind have been investigated, and 3397 criminals have been apprehended."

The Interest Chain Behind Rumors Involving Enterprises

In June of this year, the Cyberspace Administration of China exposed a batch of typical cases involving enterprise rights infringement information. One case in particular is noteworthy. A cultural communication company registered an account called "Odd-Even Faction," which deliberately published negative interpretations of an information technology company's annual financial statements. When the information technology company communicated with them about the authenticity of the information, they took the opportunity to coerce the signing of a business cooperation agreement.

This situation is not uncommon. In interviews, many companies have experienced self-media using the banner of "public opinion supervision" to carry out extortion, but they dare to be angry but dare not speak.

"Recently, a foreign commercial media wrote an untrue article involving our company. We finally found the person in charge through various connections, and they directly asked for 300,000 yuan to delete the article," said Peng Juan. The company's operations already have pressure, and the management does not agree to spend money to delete the article.

Peng Juan revealed that when she usually handles corporate public opinion, she would first contact the self-media platform or the author directly. Some articles involving enterprise rights infringement can be deleted smoothly through appeals, while some rumors may require spending some money to cooperate with self-media to delete.

"For those online media that we can't work with, we just ignore them," said Peng Juan.

In March of this year, a large manufacturing company in South China also encountered the same "trouble." A self-media suddenly published an article involving the company's management salary, and all the salary data listed in the article were false, and the article arbitrarily magnified the management salary figures.

A person familiar with the internal situation of the company told the reporter: "After the company's management saw this article, they were very angry and asked the brand department to handle it. The brand department communicated with the self-media that wrote the article several times, and finally deleted the article."

Zhang Fen said: "Behind online rumors, some self-media have their own interests. At present, a hidden industry chain has been formed through spending money to delete articles, delete comments, and even reduce the heat of Weibo. Many companies are helpless when they encounter rights infringement information."How Difficult is it to Defend Rights Against Online Rumors?

Facing the negative impact of online rumors, due to the high cost of defending rights, many businesses and organizations can sometimes only wait helplessly for their demise.

"Our hospital, based on the evidence we have, reported the case to the relevant departments. However, the relevant departments, under pressure from public opinion, asked the hospital not to make the matter bigger," said Wang Zhen, who pointed out that some local regulatory authorities adopt an attitude of appeasement when dealing with disputes caused by online public opinion. This is also one of the reasons why online rumors involving enterprises cannot be eradicated.

Wang Zhen analyzed that it is difficult to file cases involving corporate rights infringement, on the one hand, because the coordination mechanism of relevant departments has not played a role. For example, in the case of economic cases, the relevant case-handling departments can receive rewards after solving the case, but there is no corresponding reward for handling corporate rights infringement cases. On the other hand, when dealing with corporate rights infringement cases involving online influencers, there are also concerns about "attracting trouble," worrying that online influencers will divert public opinion to the case-handling authorities themselves.

In the interview, the reporter learned that in response to the behavior of online rumors infringing on the rights and reputation of enterprises, the relevant departments of a certain province have held multiple coordination meetings to study and handle the issue of infringement information involving enterprises. However, such cases still encounter difficulties in filing at the grassroots level.

An unnamed person who studies online public opinion told the reporter that the crime of damaging commercial reputation, in terms of the internet, whether the parties involved are illegal or criminal, the relevant departments lack experience in this area of work, especially in quantifying the direct economic losses brought to enterprises, there is no operable quantitative standard.

The aforementioned person gave an example that one of the standards for filing a case of damaging commercial reputation is "causing direct economic losses to others of more than 500,000 yuan." In order to combat online corporate rights infringement, their company invited a third-party institution in Shenzhen to assess the losses to the company's commercial reputation caused by online water armies and influencers' corporate statements. The assessment report showed that the company's losses reached more than 50 million yuan. However, when the company's relevant person handed over the assessment report to the relevant departments, they still did not obtain filing.

Zhang Fen believes that the difficulty of filing cases against online rumors further emboldens those who spread rumors. Relevant departments should work together to strengthen the crackdown on rumor spreaders.

A person from the propaganda system told the reporter that large enterprises encountering online rumors often fall into a situation of "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut." Even if they win the lawsuit through litigation, it is often difficult for enterprises to obtain compensation other than apologies; moreover, even if they win the lawsuit, the difficulty of execution also makes entrepreneurs very anxious.

"In summary, the cost of online rumor-mongering is too low, but the cost of defending rights for enterprises is too high; in addition, relevant departments generally adopt an attitude of appeasement, and entrepreneurs do not want to make a big fuss over trivial matters, affecting the normal production and operation of the enterprise," the aforementioned person said.Faced with such a situation, relevant departments have also taken action to severely crack down on online rumors. In December 2023, the Ministry of Public Security held a press conference, pointing out that public security organs adhere to the principle of "three strikes and three digs", that is, "striking gangs, striking chains, striking ecosystems, digging behind the scenes, digging for financial backers, digging for assets". The targets are internet celebrities and big Vs who fabricate and spread false information to "create hot spots", "ride hot spots", and "lead the rhythm", as well as "internet water armies" who make profits by引流, and behind-the-scenes manipulating MCN institutions (organizations specializing in short video content creation and marketing), etc., to clarify the black and gray interest chains, thoroughly penetrate the industry's operational ecosystem, and continuously improve the ability to crack down on online rumor cases and ecological strikes.