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Behind the popularity of new energy vehicles, an undercurrent is also surging. On some public information platforms such as Douyin and Sina Weibo, some companies frequently create hot searches and spread rumors through videos, comments, and online articles. The phenomenon is getting worse and worse, and mutual attacks are rampant, seriously disrupting the market order.

How are "hot searches" created? Why have the comment section become the hottest area for rumors? The reporter recently visited a number of car companies and public relations companies to track and secretly investigate this gray "industry chain" and reveal the car companies' "Black PR"Chaos.

"Water Army" floods the "comment area"

"In a live broadcast room, when a certain brand of new energy vehicle background image began to appear on the screen, a large number of robot accounts 'flooded' in within a minute, filling the comment area with abusive or slanderous words..."

This is a reporter at a largeinternetContent seen on short video platforms: A large number of "water armies" of unknown origin automatically enter the live broadcast room after identifying the content of the live broadcast room and start indiscriminate verbal attacks.

"Internet water army" is not a new phenomenon on the Internet platform, but in recent years, due to the intensified competition in the industry, some automobile companies have adopted an "involutionary" mentality and used control methods such as "water army flooding" or machine brushing to belittle and demote competing companies and products, causing confrontational emotions and negative public opinion, and destroying the fair competition environment in the industry.

An industry insider told the reporter that the "comment sections" of some online platforms have become a hotbed for negative comments: companies use suppliers to manufacture and publish large numbers of negative comments at low prices, which are then continuously amplified and forwarded from point to surface, driving negative public opinion to heat up and even become a hot topic.

The public relations manager of a well-known Beijing auto company told reporters that once negative public opinion is formed in the comment area, the commentator at the source often deletes or cancels his account immediately, making it difficult to trace the source, which is a headache for legitimate companies. Some certified accounts or "big Vs" on the platform are supported by funds or traffic from competing companies, and select some extreme or false statements in the comment area for secondary dissemination, but they do not need to bear responsibility when they are held accountable.

The head of the public relations department of a new energy vehicle company in a central province revealed that the situation of artificially creating hot search comments is becoming more and more serious. According to the analysis of its technical team, sometimes nearly half of the comments on a hot search are from so-called "real-name" accounts or "trolls" controlled by robots. "Sometimes it only costs tens of thousands of yuan to artificially create a hot search."

The reckless behavior of "online water army" has caused headaches for the platform and related public opinion response. In early July, a Sina Weibo administrator released a message saying, "A certain car brand purchased financial and commercial media accounts at the company's key marketing nodes and financial report nodes, planned related hot topics, and illegally purchased the so-called ranking services of external marketing companies. The marketing company used machines to increase the volume and released homogeneous content in a short period of time to illegally rush to the rankings." At the same time, BYD's Internet Reporting Center also released news: Since the recent release of the reward (collecting clues of black public relations), it has received thousands of emails and private messages, and provided preliminary rewards to some clue providers.

Machine production becomes a new tool for producing public opinion

The reporter interviewed many industry insiders and learned that with the widespread application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, some companies have begun to use this tool to generate AI robot manuscripts and comments with the same content but different wording, and then broadcast them on different social media platforms through an account system formed by a large number of manually operated accounts and accounts mass-produced by robots, resulting in tens of thousands of content pieces in a short period of time, and then assisted by traffic purchases to concentrate on pushing up the popularity of the topic, forming an overwhelming trend of public opinion.

"This high-intensity 'attack marketing' has been very skillfully applied by some companies in today's network environment," said a relevant person in charge of a car company in a central province.

my country has vigorously promoted the real-name system on the Internet, so how are these illegal accounts formed? Some insiders of public relations companies told reporters that many companies will hire multiple public relations companies at the same time. Some of these companies do positive brand promotion work on the surface, but in fact they are "hidden thugs."

Some companies hire black and gray companies to use their ID numbers to register or purchase a large number of fake "real-name accounts", or revive a large number of "water army" accounts that remained in WeChat business in the past to form a large-scale network water army. "In the industry, after layers of subcontracting, some "black public relations" only need to post a comment.one cent。”

The head of a car company in an eastern province told reporters: "One team often controls hundreds or thousands of accounts. They operate directly with a motherboard. This device does not require a physical phone. The cost of a single motherboard is only a few dozen yuan. A set of motherboards can complete the control of the account. The cost of launching a 'public opinion war' is extremely low."

The reporter contacted a practitioner who rents and sells motherboards through an online platform. He told the reporter: "What is lacking now is accounts registered with ID cards, which are scarce. Large-scale use of motherboards requires high network traffic, which can easily attract the attention of regulatory authorities, but we have a program to control the traffic below the upper limit of regulatory attention."

The reporter found out through various contacts that some PR companies directly dispatched orders through WeChat groups, QQ groups, and even Douyin groups, using real-person accounts to post comments and likes. In a WeChat part-time job group where the reporter was "undercover", the group owner would occasionally collect Douyin accounts in the group to recruit people by posting comments or pictures on related platforms. The entire process was provided by a professional team with very detailed operation steps and text and picture materials, and required to be pushed together at a unified time. The group owner told the reporter: "When there is an emergency, the boss above will directly assign the work."

Loopholes in the platform's real-name system lead to chaos

Reporters found that some platforms have loopholes in the real-name management of accounts.self-mediaActing as "thugs" and so on has caused the above problems to become more serious.

First, there are loopholes in the real-name management of accounts on the platform. Although my country has implemented the online real-name system, there are still loopholes in the registration of some platforms. In actual operation on a well-known short video platform, the reporter found that multiple mobile phone numbers associated with one identity information can be used to register accounts and voice through the accounts.

"Some communication platforms are a combination of multiple information platforms. One identity information can link multiple account resources of the platform combination to form a communication matrix. However, if an account violates the rules, the complaint mechanism requires companies to go to each platform one by one to provide feedback and handle the situation." Industry insiders told reporters that many mainstream social media platforms, driven by profit purposes such as increasing platform data, often turn a blind eye to fake traffic, causing the problem to continue to magnify.

Secondly, some Internet celebrities have become "pushers". Currently, there are a number of Internet celebrities active on Internet platforms. An insider of a public relations company told reporters that, taking the automotive self-media as an example, a rough calculation shows that between 2019 and 2022, such self-media accounts have increased by more than 300%, which has a great influence on the Internet platform. Some of these accounts have become "pushers" for some companies to carry out rumor operations.

"According to our internal statistics, there are more than 20,000 active automotive self-media on various platforms. Together with various small and medium-sized accounts of related bloggers, the total number may exceed 200,000." The head of the public relations department of an automobile company said, "In the past, it cost about 50,000 to 100,000 yuan to write negative articles about competitors. Now the competition is fierce, and some people will take orders for 500 yuan. You just need to copy and paste the text or interpret it according to the script."

“Individual media sources lead the way, and other self-media accounts or comments follow up instantly for secondary dissemination. Whenever a company has major events or emergencies, there will be immediate follow-up negative hot searches.” The person in charge of the public relations department of a car company in a central province said that for this reason, the company has to spend tens of millions of yuan each year to follow up and hedge, which has added a huge burden to the industry.

It is imperative to optimize the external environment of the industry

In response to the above situation, relevant institutions have already taken action. In March 2023, the China Automobile Enterprise Chief Brand Officer Joint Conference and its member units under the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers unanimously resolved to jointly launch a "Joint Initiative on Resisting Internet Water Armies in the Automobile Industry."

Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China has carried out a special campaign called "Clear and Bright, Optimizing the Business Network Environment - Rectifying the Chaos of Infringing Information Involving Enterprises", guiding websites and platforms to strengthen the management of online information content involving enterprises, and handling a number of illegal and irregular behaviors that infringe on the legitimate network rights and interests of enterprises and entrepreneurs in accordance with the law and contract. For example, accounts such as "Niu Shuoche" have been closed in accordance with the law and contract because they deliberately exaggerated and distorted the facts and slandered automobile companies and their founders.

Many interviewed company leaders and industry insiders said that the "Clear Operation" has achieved remarkable results, but "black public relations" and "black and gray industries" are highly concealed and difficult to manage. Once the intensity of supervision is relaxed, they are likely to "revive." Therefore, continued efforts are needed to strengthen governance and further optimize the external environment of the industry.

Some experts suggest that we should strengthen supervision and force the platforms to fulfill their main responsibilities. At the same time, we should further strengthen the optimization review of platform algorithms and increase administrative and criminal penalties for entities and individuals that use or condone the use of AI technology or "online water army" to interfere with public opinion. Platforms should speed up the improvement of the identification and early warning mechanism of public opinion content involving enterprises, strengthen the background data analysis capabilities, plug the loopholes of false "real-name" account registration, speed up the content review process, avoid the widespread spread of rumors, clean up the network content environment, and improve the quality of content.

Experts such as Song Jianwu, a professor at the School of Journalism at Renmin University of China, believe that relevant departments should strengthen supervision and law enforcement, further intensify the crackdown on "Internet trolls", and deal with typical cases and typical "Internet troll" groups in accordance with laws and regulations to play a deterrent role. Some car company executives suggested that law enforcement actions should be carried out in areas where black and gray industries are concentrated, severely cracking down on the main board and "Internet troll" industry chain to eradicate the soil for black and gray industries.

"To solve the problem of malicious competition among enterprises, industry associations and competent authorities can take the lead in establishing self-regulatory and inter-regulatory agreements to strictly investigate and restrain the illegal marketing behaviors of all parties." Song Jianwu said that it is necessary to encourage enterprises to return to normal business competition and further create a clean and healthy business environment.