Many big internet celebrities have been banned! How can MCNs and creators avoid crossing the content red line?

This article explores the phenomenon of many big influencers being banned for crossing the content red line, and provides strategies to avoid similar situations. The article provides insights for content creators and MCN agencies on how to improve content sensitivity and ensure compliance. Recommended reading for influencers, content creators, and MCN agency operators.

Many more internet celebrities have been banned! Recently, many internet celebrities with millions of fans, such as "Wang Hongquanxing", "Mr. Bai", and "Abalone Sister", have been banned from all platforms, and their common label is "show-off internet celebrities".

In fact, it is not just the Internet celebrities who flaunt their wealth who have been given red cards. This year, Internet celebrities who fabricated scripts for filming "Mao Yibei" and other paid knowledge Internet celebrities such as "Ququ Big Woman" and "Li Yizhou" have all been banned for crossing the red line of content.

What are the thoughts left for content creators and MCNs behind each wave of Internet celebrity bans? And how can they avoid crossing the content red line?

1. Internet celebrities who flaunt their wealth are banned from the entire network

"I have 7 luxury houses in Beijing's Xinghewan community, the largest of which is 991 square meters", "When I go out every day, the total amount of my clothes must be less than eight figures, which is definitely not acceptable"...

Not long ago, in an interview with the media, Wang Hongquanxing, a million-fan internet celebrity, described his life like this. He didn't expect that one month later, his accounts on all platforms were banned for "violating relevant regulations."

On May 21, the topic "Internet celebrity Wang Hongquanxing banned from all social media platforms" was on both Weibo and Douyin's hot lists, with the Weibo topic reading volume exceeding 200 million. Under the hot search topic, some netizens said: "The ban is very good, this kind of flaunting of wealth should have been stopped long ago."

Wang Hongquanxing is an online celebrity who posts content showing his daily luxurious life. The "rich life" he shows is unimaginable for ordinary people: for example, a whole wall of luxury brand bags, a collection of 10 million-level jewelry, a manor he bought for his parents to live in, which cost "10 small goals", and an ornament worth 27 million at an auction house...

Through this "money power", he attracted countless fans. Before being banned, he had more than one million fans on the entire Internet, of which the number of fans on Douyin alone exceeded 4 million.

Like Wang Hongquanxing, there are also internet celebrities who started their careers by frequently showing off their luxurious lifestyles and “showing off their wealth”. There are also Bai Gongzi and Bao Yujiajie, two internet celebrities with more than 2 million fans. One is a rich young man who likes to buy luxury goods, and the other is a wealthy wife who owns a five-acre mansion. They have also been banned by major platforms.

The sudden mass ban of internet celebrities who flaunt their wealth was not without warning. On May 15, Douyin issued the "Douyin Announcement on Cracking Down on Information Promoting Flaunting Wealth and Other Bad Values ​​(I)" and Xiaohongshu issued the "Xiaohongshu Announcement on Continuously Cracking Down on Content Promoting Flaunting Wealth and Other Bad Values ​​(I)". Multiple platforms jointly carried out special rectification against the bad values ​​such as flaunting wealth on their platforms.

Earlier, the industry had also issued red cards to content that showed off wealth and worshipped money.

At the end of February 2021, Douyin issued an announcement to deal with deliberate flaunting of wealth, hype and other bad content, banned 3,973 accounts showing off wealth, and cleaned up related videos and audio. On March 2 of the same year, Kuaishou also issued an announcement to crack down on the promotion of bad content such as money worship. That year, the platform banned many Internet celebrities who marketed wealthy personalities and posted content showing off wealth to attract attention. Now, the platform has struck again, which means that this type of content will be thoroughly rectified...

2. Which other influencers have been banned?

In the past year, it is not just the Internet celebrities showing off their wealth who have been banned for crossing the red line of content. According to incomplete statistics from Xinbochang, since August last year, as many as 10 Internet celebrities have been banned, including "Erlu" with nearly 50 million fans, "Mao Yibei" with 40 million fans on the entire network...

As for the reasons why they were banned, Xinbochang sorted out the following:

1. Fake content: making up scripts and distorting facts

In February this year, Mao Yibei released a video titled "I found the winter vacation homework of elementary school student Qin Lang in Paris", which was later reported to be a fabricated script. It was not until April that the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau intervened in the investigation and found out the truth of the incident. This was a script fabricated by "Mao Yibei" and his colleague Xue to gain traffic, not a real event. As a result, "Mao Yibei" and Xue were punished, and "Mao Yibei" was subsequently banned from all platforms.

Erlu was also banned for making up a script.

Erlu also made up a script in 2023 to gain traffic. During a live broadcast, he asked a big brother to kidnap him. Netizens in the live broadcast room felt something was wrong and called the police. The public security organs subsequently reported the truth of the incident, and "Erlu" was banned from the entire Internet.

In addition to fabricating scripts, another type of content fraud is publishing past videos that do not conform to current reality.

In April this year, "Reading Machine Girl" Gao Junyu claimed on her social media account that she was suffering from a rare brain tumor and posted several videos recording her treatment process. However, netizens questioned whether the videos were stock videos because the clothes in the videos did not match the season.

After the incident, Gao Junyu's mother apologized and said, "It was an operational error that caused misunderstandings." It was later found that the MCN agency behind Gao Junyu, "Huoran Kailang", used a stock video with a recent text description and posted it online. On April 24, all accounts of "Dot Reading Machine Girl" were banned or banned from following.

2. Transmitting bad values: Provoking anxiety and taking advantage of opportunities to profit

In January this year, "Ququ Da Nvren was banned on multiple platforms" sparked heated discussions. As early as December 2023, her Weibo account with the same name was blocked on the grounds that she "repeatedly promoted bad love views to gain popularity, and used this to sell courses for personal gain, conveying wrong value orientation."

Unlike other emotional bloggers, Ququ mainly teaches women how to gain practical benefits in intimate relationships, or in simple terms, how to make money from men. She monetizes by providing so-called emotional consulting services, charging up to 800 yuan for a live broadcast and 2,980 yuan for a set of courses.

Although the paid knowledge blogger "Li Yizhou" did not spread bad values, he also created anxiety by claiming that "if you learn AI, you will not be eliminated by society" and other propaganda, and sold courses to make money. According to public reports, he sold AI courses for 199 yuan and made 50 million yuan a year. In February this year, Li Yizhou was banned by the Douyin platform and all AI courses were removed from the platform.

3. Content or other violations: excessive speech, inducing payment

In 2023, the Internet celebrity "Xiu Cai", known as the "Killer of Middle-aged and Elderly People", received attention and had more than 10 million fans. It was reported that his female fans gave him 520,000 yuan in tips in three months, and an elderly fan in her 70s traveled thousands of miles without telling her family to meet him in person.

However, in September 2023, the account of "Xiucai" was banned for suspected tax evasion and inducing fans to give rewards.

The anti-counterfeiting blogger "Tietou Punishing Evil and Promoting Good" violated the rules because of his outspoken and excessive remarks during live broadcasts. He repeatedly made fun of topics such as the "Wenchuan Earthquake" and "domestic violence against women" during the live broadcast room, and even exposed his pornographic experience during the live broadcast to attract attention. He was reported by fans and his Douyin and Weibo accounts were banned.

3. How to avoid crossing the content red line?

It can be seen that these banned influencers are all because they have crossed the content red line, either they are fake, have no bottom line, or convey bad values...

At each stage, the regulatory level will have different crackdown focuses. For practitioners, it is particularly important to improve content sensitivity. In particular, many Internet celebrities are individual creators, and they lack awareness of content safety, so they are more likely to cross the content red line.

In fact, every time such an internet celebrity ban incident occurs, MCN agencies often become the target of public criticism, and it is believed that MCN agencies bear an unshirkable responsibility.

However, whether MCN agencies have any responsibility should be viewed from two perspectives. For this reason, Xinbochang also asked several leading MCN agencies for their opinions:

First of all, if it is an individual creator, or if even though they have signed a contract with an MCN agency, there is only a business relationship and no content incubation cooperation, then the main responsibility lies with the internet celebrity himself.

OST public relations director Gou Ming said that some internet celebrities have failed to fulfill their social responsibilities, ignored the management regulations of national regulatory authorities, and misled social values, and they should bear the consequences.

Secondly, if the internet celebrity signs a contract with an MCN and has content cooperation, the MCN should bear the responsibility.

L, the head of a leading MCN agency, told Xinbochang that those internet celebrities who have been in trouble have MCN agencies behind them, and there are indeed problems. "For the sake of traffic, they violated the regulations repeatedly issued by relevant departments. Maybe they only see money and can't see anything else, so they have to pay for the consequences."

Gou Ming also said: "If these accounts are operated by organizations, then the organizations should of course take responsibility and study and research relevant policies, laws, regulations and documents, understand their spirit and guide the content production under their umbrella."

So, how to avoid such problems?

For individual creators, they need to learn more about relevant laws and regulations and understand the platform rules.

For MCN organizations, they can set up corresponding content security teams, develop relevant learning courses, and standardize content review processes to achieve control over all aspects of celebrity content production as much as possible.

L said: "We think that every organization should have someone who understands government relations to supervise it, and should always keep a low profile."

According to Xinbochang, MCN agencies have already placed content security in an important position, and some leading MCN agencies have indeed set up such departments and positions.

Gou Ming told Xinbochang: "We believe that content security work is essentially to protect our core assets - new media accounts. We often emphasize that if the content is not done well, the account will be neither hot nor cold, but we can still adjust and make efforts to start again later. However, if the content security work is not done well, it will be a shock death, and this asset will be lost forever."

It is understood that OST has established a content safety production committee internally and formulated a series of content security systems: a series of regulations including review-training-learning-responsibility-handling; it has also specially hired senior news media people to be responsible for content security work, and has carried out relevant compliance training for the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Cultural and Tourism Bureau, the Radio and Television Bureau, the Market Supervision Administration, etc.; it issues content security reminders and case warnings twice a week, and organizes content security training for all employees every month.

At present, the short video industry continues to be hot, and Internet celebrities and MCN agencies are in the spotlight, and their every move is closely watched. For Internet celebrities and MCN agencies, if they want to survive for a long time, content security must be a compulsory course.

Author: Changmei; Source public account: Xinbochang (ID: 1093973)