"Thunder again!" Mentioning the recently punched net red Western restaurant, Hefei citizen Xie Yu shook his head. During the Spring Festival, he met with a blind date for the first time, he deliberately chose a high-scoring store on the review platform, "I didn't expect that the food was not delicious, the environment was still so noisy, and the evaluation on the platform was far from the difference." Makes me so faceless. ”
In recent years, the relevant departments have repeatedly carried out special rectification actions to crack down on unfair competition behaviors such as brushing single speculation and false propaganda, and some review platforms have also intervened to rectify the problem of traffic fraud such as brushing and controlling evaluations, and tens of thousands of accounts have been processed each time, but chaos such as brushing points and controlling evaluations is still difficult to eradicate.
The "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter's investigation found that the means of brushing points control and evaluation were "varied", and the brush points pit customers, chaos the market, and bitter businesses.
"You brush me brush everyone brush, don't brush you lose"
In the era of mobile Internet, the reference platform score at the time of consumption has become the habit of more and more netizens. Platforms that focus on consumer reviews, such as public reviews and word-of-mouth, have become "essential for many netizens to install the machine".
"In the past, I always looked at the review software before consumption, and I could often find some 'treasure stores'; after I consumed, I would also rate the store to provide convenience to other netizens." Wang Mingming, who works in Beijing, said.
Consumers score and evaluate "sincerely" on the review platform, forming a spontaneous supervision system on the Internet. Such "online mutual aid" once became a "consumer guide" and "pit avoidance treasure book" for many people.
"I don't know when the ratings have become more and more fake, and many reviews come from professional writers at first glance, which has no reference value at all." Wang Mingming said that it is difficult to believe in the "high-scoring merchants" and "must-eat stores" on the platform.
At the other end, many merchants also feel helpless.
"Don't brush the score, everyone is brushing." Mr. Li, the owner of a barbecue shop in Hefei, complained: "Now the catering industry is fiercely competitive, if the score is not good, the passenger flow will be much less." ”
"You brush me brush everyone, and if you don't brush you lose." In order to make the store win a better reputation, many merchants turn to third-party agencies that claim to be able to improve their ratings.
"Only chain stores or powerful internet celebrity stores can brush points for a long time, and our small shops can't afford to 'burn'." Mr. Li said that in this kind of inner-roll brushing, small merchants are definitely at a disadvantage.
On platforms such as Black Cat Complaints, there are many consumers who complain about false ratings, involving catering, tourism, hairdressing and nail art; some merchants also complain of malicious bad reviews by peers or third-party agencies.
Relevant platforms have also begun to pay attention to the governance of the chaos of brushing points and controlling evaluations. In the first five months of 2021, Dianping punished more than 50,000 user accounts for "brushing praise", more than 10,000 merchants for "brushing singles" and "brushing reviews", and upgraded the algorithm recognition ability.
Despite the continuous strengthening of technical prevention capabilities and special governance efforts, on some platforms, the chaos of brushing points and controlling evaluations is still repeatedly prohibited. Hu Yin, director of the Consumption Guidance Department of the Consumer Protection Commission of Anhui Province, said that brushing points to control and evaluate will transmit false information to consumers, infringe on consumers' right to know and choose, constitute unfair competition for operators in the same industry, cause market chaos, and also bring a crisis of trust to the platform.
Who "played bad" with "review ecology"?
The reporter's investigation found that brushing points and controlling evaluations is not an individual behavior. Merchants, third-party agencies and even some platforms are involved.
——Merchants "warmly invite", customers are difficult to refuse. "We will ask our customers for positive reviews, and give them dishes or give them preferential treatments." Ms. Wang, who runs a hotel in Beijing, found that by playing the "love card" and sending benefits to customers, the ratings of her hotel slowly "brushed up".
"Merchants sometimes ask me to give me good reviews, as long as the service is not too bad, I generally will not refuse." Huang Min, a citizen of Wuhu, said that sometimes it is the merchants who "grind hard bubbles" to make people "warm and difficult", and sometimes the merchants provide various offers, because "eating people's mouths is short" can only give praise.
——Third-party institutions intervened to brush up on the "clear price marking" of the score control evaluation. Reporters enter keywords such as "word-of-mouth operation" on shopping websites, and a large number of third-party institutions claim to improve ratings and optimize reviews appear. There are even institutions that claim to have more than 30,000 "talents" and "big V", and the business scope covers the whole country, "as long as you are willing to invest, there are professionals to send high-quality praise." ”
A third-party agency on a shopping website swipes the point control evaluation advertisement
The reporter contacted an institution, the other party "clearly marked the price", said that "the praise of 60 yuan, the number of visitors, the amount of collection are 1 yuan a" "the more money is spent, the better the effect."
In addition to spending money to brush praise, you can also pay to delete bad reviews. Mr. Li, a restaurant operator in Wuhan, told reporters that soon after the opening, an institution came to the door and said that it could help delete bad reviews, "Ordering an 888 yuan package can help deal with 15 bad reviews." ”
A merchant showed the reporter the quotation of deleted bad reviews issued by a third-party agency
——Some platforms "shoot" to help merchants "cheat". "Partnering with the platform can improve the rating of the store, which can get more exposure and traffic." Ms. Wang, a hotel operator in Hefei, said that a platform staff will recommend the installation of the platform's charging treasure and housing management system, which can improve the store-related index, the higher the index, the more exposure.
In addition, the platform staff also let the hotel recommend customers to place orders through their own payment entrance. At a certain time, one order is counted as two, and the hotel sales data looks better. In this way, when consumers search for hotels on the platform, if they filter by "sales first", the hotel ranking will naturally be higher.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, said that the Internet economy has the characteristics of remoteness and virtuality, and the construction of the credit system is particularly important. Chaos such as brushing points and controlling evaluations, brushing single speculation and letter speculation will destroy the credit system and is not conducive to the development of the Internet economy.
Brushing points and controlling evaluations is suspected of violating the law, and the chaos of comments needs to be comprehensively treated
Not long ago, the Central Cyberspace Administration deployed a nationwide special action to "crack down on traffic fraud, black public relations, and network water army" to control traffic fraud problems such as life services, book and video scoring, short videos, and short videos. Industry experts suggest that regulators, platforms, merchants, and consumers work together to build a healthy "review ecology".
"Whether it is a merchant or an intermediary, brushing points is suspected of violating the law." Li Shengli, vice dean of the Law School of Anhui University, said that the Anti-Unfair Competition Law stipulates that business operators must not make false or misleading commercial publicity about the sales status of their goods, user evaluations, etc., deceive or mislead consumers, and must not help other business operators to carry out false or misleading commercial publicity by organizing false transactions and other means.
"There is nothing wrong with cooperation between platform operators and merchants on the platform, but they must not assist or induce merchants to swipe orders and speculate letters." Chen Yinjiang said that the E-commerce Law stipulates that e-commerce platform operators should display search results to consumers according to the price, sales volume, credit, etc. of goods or services, and the search results should be true, comprehensive, and objective, and should not be distorted by commercial interests.
Chen Yinjiang suggested that cracking down on the black industrial chain involves market supervision, network information, public security and other departments, and it is necessary to form a coordinated co-governance mechanism and increase supervision. In addition, the brush point control evaluation is highly hidden, and the regulatory authorities should also innovate regulatory methods, such as through big data technology, algorithm identification and other means to carry out investigation and evidence collection.
Li Shengli said that whether it is fictitious transaction volume or fabricated user praise, the relevant behaviors are carried out on the platform, and in terms of data collection and behavior monitoring, the platform has innate advantages. Therefore, the platform should take the main responsibility, first of all, it should maintain a reasonable distance from the merchant, and the commercial cooperation should be legal and compliant; secondly, it should strengthen daily management, optimize products and algorithms, and avoid "bad currency expelling good money".
Hu Yin said that a healthy "review ecology" needs to be built by many parties. In addition to strengthening supervision by relevant departments and platforms, merchants and consumers should also take action. For merchants, "others brush" should not be the reason for their own "brushing points", should adhere to the legal bottom line and business ethics, such as finding relevant clues can actively complain to the relevant departments and platforms. While improving their ability to identify, consumers should also consciously resist bad behavior and not be moved by "praise cashback" and "discount coupons".
Source Xinhua Viewpoint WeChat public account
Edited by Gao Chenchen
Process Editor Wu Yue