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——auto market hot questions and answers (issue 275)

he lun, director of the automotive research institute of netcom

recently, a video of a big v car reviewer testing a new car of a certain brand on a slope attracted a lot of attention, so the certain brand issued a statement saying that his "conclusion was not objective and fair, and misleading to consumers." as a result, the car reviewer was banned from posting on a certain blog for a week for "violating relevant laws and regulations." a person in charge of another brand directly related to the certain brand stated that the matter was related to "paying for good reviews and not paying for bad reviews," which caused greater controversy.

q: the "fei po gate" was not a big deal, but now it has become very serious. at least it scares me as a media person. i might be banned from a certain platform one day because of "non-objectivity and unfairness". so, when i talk to you about the "fei po gate", i have to abuse the word "something" to avoid legal risks. please understand! what do you think of the "fei po gate"?

answer: the biggest point of the "slope gate" is not the right and wrong of the test itself, but the fact that even if a certain community hates a certain car reviewer to the core, they can't really find any reason to accuse him of a decent crime. they can only lightly say that his "conclusion is not objective and fair." it can be seen that this is actually a matter in which everyone has their own reasons and it is difficult to clarify.

the real point is,"the conclusion is not objective and fair" violates "relevant laws and regulations". which laws and regulations are they?i have been in the automotive industry for more than 20 years, and this is the first time i have heard of such a thing. will this become a common practice in the automotive industry in the future - as long as the "conclusion is not objective and fair", it is illegal and will be banned?

a further question is, who has the right to judge that the conclusion of a car reviewer or media is "not objective and fair" and impose a ban on them? if it is the manufacturer, then do all manufacturers have this power, or only certain manufacturers or brands have this privilege? alternatively, should the court or a third-party organization be established to judge and punish the media's "not objective and fair conclusions"?

this is almost absurd.

q: if this absurdity really becomes a rule or practice, how much harm will it cause to the industry and consumers?

answer: questioning is one of the basic spirits of science. if your technology is not to be questioned or criticized, then your "far ahead" has already left the field of science and technology and entered the realm of theology.

absurd rules will inevitably lead to disastrous results. i have said before that in the videos about vehicle problems or accidents on the internet, the logos of the vehicles are blurred or blocked. some cars are simply covered with "shrouds" or blocked by fences. it has even developed to the point where the relevant personnel directly remove the logos of the accident vehicles with tools. the dubbing of the video is also "a certain brand", "guess", "dare not say" and so on, making it seem like they are talking about a wild species of unknown origin. it can be called a unique wonder in the history of the world's automobiles.

now, as you just said, the media, including you, have to abuse the word "something" to avoid the risk of being sued or banned. if all reports on vehicle problems use the word "something" in the future, consumers will have to work hard to figure out which manufacturer, brand or model "something" refers to in order to avoid being deceived.

another problem brought about by this absurd rule is that if the media specifically praises a certain manufacturer, brand, or model, and does not praise it in moderation, and the manufacturer, competitors, or the public believe that "the conclusion is not objective, fair, and misleading to consumers," would that also be considered illegal and should the media be banned?

q: i think of another issue. in the past two years, certain manufacturers or brands have exaggerated their "leading by far" and "most", "most", and "most". is this considered "unobjective and unfair conclusion"? how many consumers, fans, and believers have been misled to do the work of guinea pigs? should such big liars who can really harm the interests of consumers be banned?

a: the manufacturers’ claims of being “far ahead” and “most” have gone beyond the issue of “unobjective and unfair conclusions” and are suspected of violating the “advertising law” and “anti-unfair competition law”, but i don’t think any manufacturer has been sued, punished or banned for this. this is indeed a big problem.

q: recently, a person in charge of a certain brand responded to media questions about car reviewer xxx being banned from commenting. he said, "then let professionals, real professionals (to test), rather than non-professionals or media people who come up with fake things. if you pay, you will get a good review, and if you don't pay, you will get a bad review..." what do you think?

answer: there are several interesting points in this passage.

one is that he put non-professionals and media professionals on the same level, meaning that media professionals and car reviewers are nothing and are not qualified to do the work of professionals. interestingly, when the fan media of this brand quoted this passage, they deleted the "media professionals" and only kept the "non-professionals". there are probably two reasons for this. one is that such derogatory remarks about media professionals may offend a large number of people, so these fan media took the initiative to help the owner solve the problem and deleted this phrase without authorization; the other is that fan media are also media, and if the owner does not take the media seriously, the fan media will be ashamed to face others if the news gets out, so they just pretend that the owner never said this.

the key point is the following sentence - "if you pay, i will give you a good review, if you don't pay, it will be a bad review." this is a very serious accusation, far beyond the accusation of "unobjective and unfair", and suspected of criminal acts of extortion. according to normal logic, if you say a few bad words about me, i will sue you for breaking the law. if you dare to blackmail me, then i will fight you to the death? but the person in charge of a certain brand did not say that he would take legal measures against a certain car reviewer, and the legal department of a certain brand did not speak out on this.

for a certain car reviewer, although he has not been prosecuted yet, his reputation has been tainted by the charge of extortion. it seems that the only way to clear himself is to countersue the other party for defamation.

question: the spokesperson for a certain brand did not mention a certain car reviewer by name. can this be understood as a general statement?

answer: he was obviously referring to car reviewer xxx because he was directly answering questions about car reviewer xxx.

if it is a general term, then there will be big trouble. according to his logic, the good reviews are because they received the money, and the bad reviews are because they did not receive the money. in any case, they are all suspected of extortion. the only difference is whether the extortion is successful and whether they will be prosecuted. it is equivalent to scolding all the media in the automotive industry.

to summarize, if the current automotive media says a few bad things about a certain manufacturer, brand, or model, or just exposes the facts without any disguise or comment, they may suffer troubles such as lawyers' letters, legal department statements, and being banned from speaking. therefore, the best option is to use "certain" to replace the names of all manufacturers, brands, and models in "suspected negative" reports, and consciously cover up the car logos in related images and video displays, so that chinese cars can enter the "certain" era with justification and openness.

in the "certain" era, "positive" reports do not have to be "certain", allowing chinese cars to be self-satisfied with the praise of "far ahead", "best", "best", and "best", while all the "negative" reports and "bad reviews" will be "certain" to the point where it is impossible to tell who is with whom and who is responsible. then the automobile industry, manufacturers, brands, media, and consumers will all be happy?

of course, joint ventures and imported products do not have to enjoy "certain" treatment, because if they dare to make this request, they are courting death; there is another way of saying it, they are already like a dead pig that is not afraid of boiling water.

(photo/text: he lun, netcom news agency)