Weibo loses its big V vest

Recently, there is news on the Internet that Weibo will soon implement a real-name system, and the real names of big Vs will be displayed at the front of the first-level page. Under the real-name system, will there be any new changes in surfing the Internet? What impact will it have on the Weibo ecosystem? Let's take a look.

The slogan of real-name system has been shouted for many years, and now it seems that it may finally be implemented.

This weekend, a piece of news circulated online claimed that Weibo will soon implement a real-name system, and the real names of big Vs will be displayed on the front page of the first-level page. Among them, before the end of October, self-media accounts with 1 million fans will display their real names on the front page; in December, self-media accounts with 500,000 fans will display their real names on the front page; self-media accounts with 100,000 fans will complete real-name authentication with ID cards in the background and display their professional information on the front page. Currently, it is limited to the fields of current affairs, finance, and entertainment. Subsequently, Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei also confirmed the news.

In the short few days since the news was revealed, the number of one million fans, which once quantified the double prosperity of a blogger and the Weibo product itself, has become a time bomb hanging over our heads. As a result, absurd scenes began to appear frequently in just two days: the top bloggers were busy clearing fans to rescue and rescue, foreshadowing the possibility of abandoning their accounts and running away; ordinary Internet users were just watching the show, wavering between support and opposition.

Recently, Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei personally said that there are ways to use real-name authentication if you don't want to. The first is to clear the number of fans and reduce the number to below 1 million. The second is to change fields. For example, if you were keen on discussing international affairs before, it's not too late for you to switch to a food blogger now. However, if you change fields, you have to be decent. If less than 50% of your comments on food in a month, you won't be able to switch to the food field.

Will real-name registration bring a new era of peace and prosperity to online surfing? This remains to be seen. But one thing that cannot be denied is that it will bring about earth-shaking changes to the ecosystem of Weibo.

01 Those years when Weibo was exposed

If we use one word to describe the most fundamental charm of the Internet world, then the most prominent word must be anonymity.

In modern society, if a person does not want all his actions to be recorded permanently without omission and exposed to everyone, then anonymity becomes the basis of everything.

Especially on an open social platform like Weibo, it is noisy and bustling, and sometimes inevitably mixed with some prejudice and falsehood, but because of the anonymous nature, everyone wears a mask, and this noise and bustle is particularly valuable. People can get away from the pursuit and blockade of the real world and immerse themselves in the virtual world for a short time, satisfying the desire of countless people to express and interact, and realizing a kind of ritual struggle.

Therefore, there are at least ten discussion modes and conflicting opinions surrounding the real-name system for Weibo's millions of fans: on one hand, supporters applaud and firmly believe that this is a good way to deal with keyboard warriors; on the other hand, cautious people are worried and anxious, fearing that this is just the beginning of a tragedy.

In fact, if we extend the timeline a little longer, we may find that since the Cyberspace Administration of China proposed the real-name registration requirement for websites in 2017, the incident of tearing off users' "disguises" has been happening on Weibo almost every year.

Among them, the most important reform came from last year. With Weibo as the first platform, the IP location function was launched. Although the controversy was overwhelming at that time, it did not stop the platform from implementing it. First, Weibo brought IP location, and then Douyin, WeChat official account, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu and other platforms followed one by one. Now, the situation of front-end real-name will probably be similar to it, and Weibo is just the beginning.

In fact, in order to cope with the increasingly strict real-name authentication mechanism, a different kind of anonymity has begun to become popular among netizens, such as the "momo army". This group, which appears on major community platforms, has a pink dinosaur as its avatar and a nickname of "momo". It is one of the means used by young people to avoid acquaintances and human flesh searches, and to find a sense of identity in the cyber world.

Ultimately, at a time when the cyber world and offline life are infinitely integrated, the demand for free expression and the desire to escape from social interactions with familiar people can never be ignored.

But compared to the disclosure of IP location, the chain reaction brought about by front-end real-name authentication is obviously more serious. One possibility that is widely mentioned is, "In the future, if I don't like someone, can I buy fans for him to obtain his front-end real-name information?"

This also leaves Weibo, and even all major social platforms, with a contradiction that must be faced: How to balance the traffic and legal risks brought by real-name authentication?

For the platform, real-name authentication can indeed reduce the difficulty of community management to a certain extent, provide a clearer and more accurate source of information, and help the platform to manage content more effectively. However, the various crises, hidden dangers and possible inactivation it leaves behind mean that this is not a problem that can be easily solved.

Overall, although the implementation of the real-name system on Weibo seems inevitable, it will inevitably require more loopholes to be filled. The platform needs to find a balance between free expression, commercial interests and social responsibility and establish reasonable boundaries.

Of course, this cannot be achieved overnight. As more and more people become frustrated with the deterioration of the public opinion environment, salvation will emerge spontaneously from the danger. And real-name authentication may be just an important step in this long process.

But this does not prevent the ripples from dissipating.

02 When the ripples have cleared away

At present, Weibo’s real-name authentication will start with current affairs, finance, and entertainment.

Compared with the fields of food, cute pets, technology, etc., their common characteristics are that they have greater traffic and are relatively controversial. Especially in the field of entertainment, Weibo has been around for 14 years and is almost the most important window for the public to obtain information and discuss opinions, and it is also a bridge for communication between celebrities and fans.

From Yao Chen becoming the "Queen of Weibo" for her criticism of current affairs to becoming a battleground for publicity and promotion in the entertainment industry, Weibo's entertainment ecology has become unprecedentedly prosperous and chaotic in recent years. Various disorderly competitions have created countless media wonders, until a huge vortex has formed, engulfing the entire industry.

But no matter how it changes, one thing that cannot be denied is that entertainment is the basic market that Weibo must maintain. As of the end of the second quarter, Weibo's monthly active users were close to 600 million, a net increase of 17 million year-on-year, and daily active users reached 258 million, a net increase of 5 million year-on-year. Among them, a large part of the user base comes from entertainment. Weibo's Q2 financial report shows that in the first half of this year, the entertainment traffic and user interaction volume increased by more than 20% year-on-year. In the summer vacation period of July and August, the average daily interaction volume of Weibo's entertainment increased by 28% and 44% respectively compared with the first half of the year.

"Building a high building", "Entertaining guests" and "The building collapsed" almost all happened here first. The younger generation of users and the entertainment marketing accounts derived from them, holding high the grave-digging shovels that are popular among the whole nation, linger under every Weibo post related to celebrities.

But on the other hand, Weibo cannot prevent the gradual shift of propaganda positions represented by entertainment content, especially towards short videos.

According to QuestMobile data, as of May 2023, the average monthly usage time of Douyin and Kuaishou is 36.6 hours and 23.3 hours respectively, while Weibo is only 10.9 hours - even less than Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. Of course, losing user attention to short videos is a reality that almost all Internet platforms must face, even Toutiao, which is the same parent as Douyin, is no exception.

It is predictable that with the implementation of real-name authentication in the future, this trend will inevitably be further intensified. Once the rules that were previously regarded as industry inertia are broken, it means that self-preservation becomes the best option.

This means that, perhaps after the real-name authentication, Weibo will inevitably face another crisis. After all, the main problem Weibo is facing now is that when unexpected risks come, Weibo's means of "self-rescue" are likely to be insufficient.

Especially in terms of commercial value, the path for brands to realize monetization on Weibo is much longer than that on Douyin and Kuaishou. Therefore, it can be seen that Weibo is always trying to find a new growth curve. In December 2021, when Weibo was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the second time, it mentioned other monetization channels besides advertising revenue in its prospectus, including membership services, online games, live broadcasts and social e-commerce. Unfortunately, from the perspective of revenue share, the effect is not obvious.

The huge user base is still one of Weibo’s most important weapons.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this that, despite the heated public opinion, Weibo's attitude towards real-name authentication is somewhat ambiguous. According to the statements made by Weibo's CEO, Weibo is currently wavering in terms of the number of fans, the type of information disclosed, and the media attributes.

Especially in the scope of real-name authentication, "Laiquzhijian" said that Weibo will consider it from the media perspective, that is, when the blogger has "media influence", he needs to use his real name. If he is an ordinary Internet surfing user who does not have media influence, the backend real-name system will still be used.

At the same time, he also raised another possibility, that is, if the blogger does not disclose his real name on the front page under voluntary choice, he may not be able to obtain public domain recommendations.

How Weibo will ultimately find the compatibility between virtuality and reality in real-name authentication may take some time to figure out. But for Weibo itself, the preparations should start now.

Author: Pomegranate, Editor: Yuejian

Source public account: Xinentropy (ID: baoliaohui), insight into business variables and exploration of the essence of business.