Multiple accounts with millions of followers have been blocked! Why are script-driven sales and misery-driven traffic still rampant despite repeated bans?

Recently, many "misery bloggers" who used the banner of helping farmers have had their accounts blocked. Why is it that such scripted content that promotes sales and misery continues to be banned? What warnings does this bring to practitioners?

On September 20, Liangshan Prefecture of Sichuan Province reported a group of internet celebrities who played the victim under the banner of helping farmers, and imposed corresponding penalties on these internet celebrity accounts and the companies behind them.

These internet celebrities use the banner of helping farmers, create fake personas through scripts to increase their followers, and then start live streaming to sell goods. However, the products they sell are labeled as "specialties of Daliangshan", but in fact they are all counterfeit and shoddy products. Many of them have accounts with millions of followers.

A few years ago, many top anchors in the industry used charity as a banner to ask for tips in their live broadcast rooms. With the rise of short videos and live e-commerce, many influencers packaged themselves as "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" or "agriculture assistance ambassadors" to sell goods and realize profits.

Why is it that such script-driven content and content that uses pity to attract traffic are still rampant despite repeated bans? What warnings does it bring to practitioners?

1. Many “Daliangshan Internet Celebrities” were blocked

I originally thought it was a beautiful story about helping farmers, but it turned out to be just a carefully arranged script.

In the second half of last year, a short video influencer named "Zhao Linger" became popular on Douyin, gaining nearly one million followers in a week. In the video she posted, she met Qubu, a young Yi man from Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan.

In the video, Qu Bu, with his clear eyes and simple personality, was once described by netizens as "the second Ding Zhen".

Unexpectedly, the story turned out to be confusing - Zhao Linger went to Qu Bu's house for dinner and saw that Qu Bu had many family members and was poor. She said in the video that she wanted to help Qu Bu. After that, Zhao Linger not only took Qu Bu to make short videos, but the two also started live streaming to sell goods, focusing on poverty alleviation and helping farmers.

At that time, some netizens thought that Zhao Linger's character and content were scripted, and some people questioned the price of their products in the live broadcast room. But Qu Bu's character is very solid, and his words and deeds in the video have always been convincing. This drives the two to continue their "helping farmers and poverty alleviation" cause.

It was not until September 20, when Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province held a press conference on the “series of internet celebrity live streaming sales cases,” that netizens discovered that Zhao Linger and Qu Bu, the two so-called poverty alleviation internet celebrities, were “fake personalities” packaged by the company from beginning to end, and their stories were all scripts.

It is understood that in July 2022, the person in charge of Chengdu Xiaoyu Zhunong Media Co., Ltd., the MCN behind Zhao Linger, came to Liangshan and found Zhao Linger, who was a self-employed person at the time, and Qu Bu, a local, and then shot a video of the two people's encounter from a tourist perspective. After that, they had a meal and talked, and let Qu Bu sell his misery in front of the camera, thus step by step establishing the poverty alleviation personality of Liangshan.

With the corresponding persona and basic fans, Zhao Linger and Qu Bu started selling goods. However, they did not sell local products in Liangshan, but purchased a batch of low-priced goods from other places, affixed the trademark of "Daliangshan local products" and made huge profits. Their "poverty alleviation" products were sold to more than 20 provinces and cities across the country, with sales exceeding 10 million yuan.

As live-streaming hosts, Zhao Linger and Qu Bu earned more than 700,000 yuan in commissions from live-streaming in just 7 months.

Zhao Linger and Qu Bu are not the only ones. Liangshan Mengyang and Liangshan Aze also used the banner of Liangshan helping farmers to label low-priced products as "Liangshan specialties" and sell them at high prices in the live broadcast room to deceive consumers. These institutions also stimulate consumption among users in the live broadcast room by purchasing water armies and faking orders.

Data shows that a total of 54 suspects have been arrested in the series of live streaming sales cases by internet celebrities in Liangshan Prefecture, including 11 internet celebrities involved in the case, and 18 have been approved for arrest; 5 MCN agencies have been destroyed and 14 companies involved in the case have been sealed off; more than 20 tons of honey raw materials involved in the case, more than 4,700 bottles of counterfeit "Daliangshan Local Honey" finished products, more than 50,000 pieces of product packaging, and 3 sets of production equipment have been seized; and more than 5 million yuan of funds involved in the case have been frozen.

It is understood that the companies behind these banned Liangshan agricultural assistance internet celebrities were all newly established.

Like Chengdu Xiaoyu Agricultural Support Media Co., Ltd. behind Zhao Linger and Qu Bu, according to Qichacha, the company was established in 2022 and is located in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Its registration cost is 100,000 yuan, and its main business is marked as water conservancy management industry.

Chengdu Aowei Culture Media Co., Ltd., which is behind Liangshan Mengyang and Liangshan Aze, was established in 2021. Tang Shengjie, who holds a 60% stake, also works for Sichuan Wochen Agriculture Co., Ltd. and Sichuan Wocheng Agriculture Co., Ltd. He also worked for Chengdu Xinxin Fruit Industry Co., Ltd. and Chengdu Zhongyi Automobile Sales Co., Ltd., which have been deregistered.

It can be seen that these companies have not been established for a long time, and their industries have almost nothing to do with the short video live broadcast track. Therefore, they are targeting short video live broadcasts for traffic, and the ultimate goal is to quickly bring goods.

Some people from MCN agencies also said that the MCN agencies reported by the Liangshan Prefecture Public Security Bureau are generally referred to as "wild MCNs" in the industry. Relevant rectification actions have been ongoing, and the live broadcast platform has also been supervising them, because such behavior damages the trust of the entire content e-commerce industry in the hearts of consumers and directly affects the development of e-commerce business.

2. Why are script sales so prevalent?

In fact, there are many short videos and e-commerce live broadcasts in the rural sector that contain scripts and hype content with themes such as selling misery, helping farmers, and alleviating poverty.

A senior practitioner in a fruit e-commerce business told Xinbochang: "The Liangshan internet celebrity has been arrested, but there are still many Sichuan internet celebrities (who claim to help the poor and farmers) who have not been arrested."

He said that on content platforms such as Video Account, Kuaishou, and Douyin, shooting a video expressing the hard work of farmers and putting it on the shared bikes can generate good sales.

The reason is that this type of "pseudo-record" video content can easily arouse sympathy. At the same time, the products sold are packaged as agricultural products, and are also emphasized by institutions and experts as natural, healthy and pollution-free. Coupled with the price advantage, users who are not aware of the situation will place orders to buy.

After the accounts of "Zhao Ling'er" and "Qu Bu" were blocked, some fans still expressed disbelief. "Their filming was too real, I couldn't believe it."

This also explains why script content is rampant despite repeated bans: low cost, quick creation, and high traffic.

In 2017, a top internet celebrity live-streamed himself doing charity work in Liangshan, Sichuan, distributing money and supplies to local residents, which attracted a lot of attention and received high rewards. But in September of the same year, the internet celebrity's charity work was exposed as fake, and the distribution of money and supplies was just a formality, just to increase the popularity of the live broadcast room and attract users to give rewards under the pretext of poverty alleviation. In the end, the internet celebrity was also sentenced for fraud.

Since 2017, there have been many similar cases of penalties and failures.

For example, @牛爱芳小春花, a rural expert with over 10 million fans, was originally very popular with fans for her videos recording the life of a rural family. However, after her live streaming failed, netizens found out that their so-called rural personas were fake and the filming location was specially built.

With the collapse of her character, Niu Aifang's Little Chunhua has stopped updating since November 2022.

Before the "Daliangshan Internet Celebrity" was exposed, other false content hot searches appeared on the Douyin site.

In early September, the expert @黑牛应季水果 (hereinafter referred to as "黑牛") released a "chance encounter" video. In the video, he drove to the countryside, and a little boy carrying pomegranates came over and asked him if he wanted to buy pomegranates. Then, the little boy's grandmother appeared in the video. After learning about it, it was learned that the boy's parents went out to work and lost contact, and the two of them made a living by growing pomegranates. So Hei Niu spent money to buy the dozens of kilograms of pomegranates in the boy's backpack, and drove the two of them up the mountain.

This "helping others" video quickly attracted attention. The innocent and clear-minded little boy in the video aroused the sympathy of many people, and they wanted to offer their support. But when netizens found the little boy's grandmother, she said that she did not grow pomegranates, and the video content that day was posed by Hei Niu at his expense.

The expert Hei Niu is an e-commerce anchor who sells fruits. In addition to increasing traffic to his account, shooting such works also labeled his products as "helping farmers." However, after the grandmother's clarification was issued, Hei Niu's account was immediately blocked by the platform.

Corresponding to the proliferation of these scripts and misery content is the continuous rectification at the platform and regulatory levels.

According to the relevant person in charge of the Liangshan Prefecture Internet Information Office, since the beginning of this year, the Liangshan Internet Information Office has joined hands with the public security, market supervision and other departments to carry out a special campaign of "clearing up and strictly rectifying the chaos of 'self-media'", and severely cracking down on illegal and irregular behaviors such as "selling misery", "false assistance to farmers" and "fake charity". So far, a total of 14,157 illegal information on the Internet have been cleared and 346 illegal accounts have been dealt with.

Nowadays, both the relevant departments and the platforms themselves are stepping up efforts to crack down on such script hype and pitiful content.

The warning to practitioners is that only by creating good content and selling good products can they sustain long-term success, truly drive out bad money, eliminate users’ resistance to live streaming sales, and allow the entire content e-commerce industry to develop better.

Author: Aligu

Source: WeChat official account: "New Broadcasting Field"