Wu Guangqiang jw368@163.com A STORY posted on WeChat said 5.74 billion yuan (US$8,882 million) of goods purchased during last year’s Singles’ Day shopping event were returned. What a sensational piece of news! Given the fact that Alibaba, the world’s largest online retail platform, sold 9.12 billion yuan of goods on Nov. 11 last year, 5.74 billion yuan exceeds 60 percent of total sales. The alarmist story was sheer fabrication, created by a tea shop in Fujian Province. Having struggled with sluggish business for years, the company — rather than strive to turn the tables in honest ways — resorted to sleazy means: creating and spreading rumors to attract attention. The company posted the false story on its public account on WeChat, China’s largest social media platform currently with over 650 million users. As expected, the rumor went viral. The saying that the wise stop rumors doesn’t seem to apply in the virtual world, as there are too many rumor spreaders and gossip lovers online. A wedding company in Shanghai lost no time in reposting the article on its own WeChat account, adding fuel to the flames of the rumor. On Nov. 25, 2015, Alibaba filed a lawsuit with a court in Shanghai against the tea shop and wedding company, demanding the defendants’ stop infringement, apologize and pay compensation of 10 million yuan. On April 11, the court ruled that the tea shop make formal apology to Alibaba for making the false story and compensate 30,000 yuan. The wedding company in Shanghai was also ordered to make a public apology to Alibaba for forwarding the rumor. Such false information is all in a day’s work on WeChat. Several factors have contributed to the shrinking number of PC-end social media users and the fast rising number of mobile-end users over the past years. As most users of Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter, log in under a false name, it makes it harder for the watchdog to administer. The platform gradually lost its creditability as it was inundated with rumors, slander, mudslinging and name-calling. Some influential figures on Weibo were sanctioned for spreading rumors. The most important factor, however, is the migration of the Internet population from the PC to the mobile phone. Unlike Weibo, whose users are chiefly anonymous and unorganized, WeChat consists of countless tiny communities called “WeChat groups,” most of whose members know each other. Most people become more cautious, polite, and reasonable when speaking to acquaintances, so there have been fewer wanton rumormongers or extreme political fanatics on WeChat than on other social media. Yet garbage invades in another form: sensationalism, or biao ti dang in Chinese, acts of creating and spreading information under attention-grabbing titles. Each WeChat group sees such annoying garbage daily. Most of the posts may be harmless, either containing some chicken soup for the soul or gossip about celebrities. Some are clearly false “inspirational stories” making no sense at all, such as a loyal army dog running over a thousand kilometers after a train which carried its owner — a demobilized soldier. But some maliciously made rumors are intolerable. The other day a video was posted in one of my WeChat groups. The title was alarming: “A primary school collapsed with countless children killed, shocking the Central Government.” The video showed some children, dead or injured, being carried by rescuers out of the debris of collapsed buildings. It was apparently TV footage from an earthquake somewhere in China years ago. But the attached post said it was a school that collapsed because of poor quality caused by a corrupt school master. The mysterious poster did not specify when and where the accident occurred. What is more repulsive, the post came along with hyperbolic and silly phrases most similar stuff carry: A million people must forward it or China will fail. WeChat has pledged to take steps to block such trash. Let’s wait and see. At least, the video was removed soon after being posted. (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.) | 