ma yueran: the "short video press release" trap targets the elderly and children
2024-09-13
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recently, a number of short videos have emerged on short video platforms that exaggerate, exaggerate, or even fabricate rumors about social hot spots or emotions. because of their similar copywriting and different protagonists, these videos are called "short video drafts" and have attracted social attention.
"public draft" generally refers to an important news article written by a news agency and sent to national media for forwarding after completion. with the development of the times, it can now also refer to the content that a single communicator actively distributes to other entities in the communication network, with the ability to be quickly copied and disseminated. "short video public draft" uses this concept, highlighting the characteristics of this type of short video that are highly similar in content, form, and viewpoints.
copying or parody is one of the important characteristics of internet cultural production, and there is nothing wrong with using it for self-entertainment. but it is worth noting that this type of "short video press release" is not a simple "hot topic", but selects topics that may provoke social emotions and public opinion reactions, exaggerates facts or even fabricates rumors, and uses many accounts to virally produce and spread similar content, mass-producing real "viruses". for example, "i married a japanese old man at the age of 26" and "3 trillion chinese scientists work for the united states". these seemingly absurd and anti-intellectual "short video press releases" have gained a group of followers under eye-catching titles and massive traffic. it is not only a destruction of the internet public opinion ecology, but also a shameless smear on the relevant parties.
there is no doubt that "short video press releases" have completely polluted the information pool. such short videos often do not pursue the authenticity of information. they unfold in the form of personal narration, seemingly expressing true feelings, but blurring the core information and evidence, failing to fulfill the obligation of information verification, and taking advantage of the "post-truth" era of social media, using emotions to give rumors and false news a mask of "truth".
in addition, in terms of content tone, these short videos also intentionally point to some negative emotions, showing a vulgar or even evil appeal. whether it is an unhappy marriage or unfilial children, they try to find a "venting" resonance among users, actively catering to negative energy or even conspiracy theories. in addition, most of these videos are poorly produced, with blurry pictures and excerpts of videos and unknown sources, and crude copywriting that is stereotyped, with obvious production characteristics of "quantity over quality".
finally, from the content selection, it can also be analyzed that the target of these "short video press releases" is not the middle-aged and young people with strong cognitive and thinking abilities and continuous rich social experience, but the elderly and children with low cognitive levels and weak resistance to rumors. as more and more elderly people and children are exposed to short video platforms, more free time also makes them easy to become high-stickiness users of short video platforms. and concocting rumors against these vulnerable groups is in line with the concept of "cognitive warfare" that "uses information as the main carrier, influences and shapes the cognition of the masses in the target country, and then controls and changes their behavior, and ultimately achieves strategic and tactical goals."
although no evidence has been disclosed that foreign forces are involved in the cognitive warfare in the form of "short video press releases", in any case, in order to create a clean and healthy online environment, "short video press releases" should be the focus of network governance. the culprit who uses "short video press releases" to maliciously manipulate and poison the public's cognition must be dug deep, but the difficulty in tracing the source is also one of the characteristics of "viral transmission". at the same time, because the first content released is not necessarily the most "hot" or the most original content. rather than digging out the source, the platform, as the "first responsible person" for content supervision and cyberspace protection, should do more "halfway interception" and "key protection".
on the one hand, when a new "short video press release" appears and forms a certain volume, the platform should use a single or overall flow as a warning sign, timely discover and pay close attention to the aggregation of similar videos through the supervision mechanism, efficiently identify public opinion risks, and accelerate such videos to enter the key review sequence. at the same time, for the "short video press releases" spread by a large number of manpower or machines, we should "fight poison with poison" and introduce a two-tier supervision model of "artificial intelligence + manpower", using more efficient artificial intelligence to form an asymmetric supervision force for screening. this will help slow down the spread of "short video press releases" and trace their transmission paths, which can have a certain deterrent effect from a technical perspective.
on the other hand, for vulnerable groups, the platform has increased its protection efforts on the existing basis, such as setting direction restrictions for algorithm push in youth mode and elderly mode, strengthening the focus on the weighted value of entries in background review, and timely classification, reminders or blocking when problems are found. (the author is a scholar from the school of journalism and communication, beijing language and culture university)
