Today, the guillotine fell, and many new media accounts under Mi Meng on multiple platforms were blocked or cancelled, including her main WeChat public account "Mimeng" with over 10 million fans.
Judging from the statement released by "Phoenix.com", it can be inferred that the closure of Mimi Meng's multiple accounts this time must have come from the thundering crackdown and fierce measures taken by relevant regulatory authorities.
Below, perhaps I can briefly share some of my thoughts on this matter.
1. In fact, there were some clues about the closure of Mimi Meng, so it was not too unexpected. For example, the following points are actually ones I have expressed before:
In the domestic market environment, when any public opinion platform develops to a large enough scale and has a sufficient influence on public opinion, it will inevitably lead to attention from policies and regulations, and even the intervention of higher forces. For large content platforms, this is like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
If you still remember, the first sign of Weibo's decline was that a group of "big Vs" were cleared out on Weibo. I won't go into details, you know.
Since the second half of 2017, WeChat has reached a stage where it must "tighten control over the large amount of content circulating in its content ecosystem."
Starting from 2018, considering various conditions and backgrounds, a large amount of emotional, sentimental, sensational, gossip-seeking, and social news-oriented content will definitely be more sensitive and more likely to become the target of supervision and punishment under the strictly controlled WeChat ecosystem.
Judging from what Mi Meng said and did before, the attention it received and the controversy it caused, this company is destined to be on the regulatory list. For a long time, Mi Meng has been best at obtaining massive traffic and growth through emotional provocation and extreme views, and gradually building herself into a "leader"-like existence. However, this approach is destined to be "dancing on a tightrope". If you are not careful, you will fall into the abyss.
2. Phoenix.com’s official statement mentioned some words, such as “resisting the culture of depression and toxic chicken soup, opposing the selling of anxiety and the fraudulent use of traffic” , which are worthy of everyone’s attention and consideration, especially for new media practitioners and content practitioners. In short, the overall environment is very severe now, and everyone needs to be more careful. I won’t explain the details.
3. With the maturity of the product ecosystem, user fatigue and increasingly stringent regulatory atmosphere, in the content ecosystem of WeChat, the new media era of relying on extreme views, social news, toxic chicken soup, etc. to gain traffic can be said to have ended. In 2019, the space for "relying on content to gain traffic and growth in the WeChat ecosystem" will become smaller and smaller. However, it is very likely that there will be many articles to be written in terms of "operation" and "commercialization", which is also the direction that most new media practitioners should pay more attention to . If you are working in new media and you don’t think you are a top content player, perhaps you should devote more energy to more actively studying various tools, various growth and monetization methods, and community gameplay in the new media environment.
4. Today, the content consumption load in the WeChat ecosystem is getting bigger and bigger, and entertaining and simplified content is becoming more and more common. Even Zhihu has become more and more dominated by entertainment jokes and curiosity-type content. At this time, we begin to subconsciously call for and expect a content community like Zhihu in 2012-2013, where everyone can discuss and communicate seriously, rationally and objectively.
I have a guess that perhaps such a community will reappear in 2019 and 2020.
5. It is relatively easy to gain huge influence by continuously outputting opinions, especially radical opinions, in the era of social media, but it is also likely to be the thing with the greatest risks and pressures. Whether it is the countless big Vs who were banned and suppressed in the Weibo era, or many big Vs of this era including Luo Yonghao, Mimi Meng, etc., they have repeatedly proved this point.
This point can be interpreted as: Whatever makes you successful can also easily destroy you.
Perhaps the best way to avoid this is to have awe for more people and things in this world, and to pay more attention to "ethics" and "social values" while pursuing worldly success.
Finally, I would like to attach some of my views and thoughts on "the professional ethics of new media practitioners" that I mentioned in my 2018 article "Written after a large account with a million followers was shut down" for your reference and review. These words cannot be emphasized enough.
If we magnify the scale of the industry, this incident reflects the value orientation that is prevalent among countless new media practitioners: "only focusing on traffic and marketing", "not considering ethics and responsibility in the face of hot topics, and having no bottom line".
Moreover, such a value orientation is actually created by market laws. In the world of new media, "traffic = commercial value" is an unchanging truth. Only new media that can efficiently obtain traffic can have higher commercial value and returns. On the contrary, new media that cannot obtain traffic are destined to be eliminated. Once you enter the context of "how to obtain traffic most efficiently", you will find that pornography, violence, sex, gossip, chasing hot topics, etc. are always the only way.
However, the problem is that the "content" industry should probably never simply consider commercial value, but also some social responsibilities and ethics. The reason is simple: the content itself often carries too many value judgments and thoughts, and this information often affects the actions and thoughts of others. You never know how your post might affect someone.
For example, if you expose various industry scandals every day, you are bound to gain huge traffic and commercial returns, but such content may lead to a lot of distrust in the entire industry, greatly affecting the healthy development of the industry, so how will you make a choice?
2.
The biggest differences between the "new media" environment and the traditional content consumption environment are two points:
Users' consumption time is shorter and more fragmented, which leads to a natural weakening of their willingness and ability to consume content that is deeper, longer, more complex, or requires more careful appreciation. Therefore, some content that is shorter, more concise, and more able to quickly hit users' emotions and curiosity is naturally more likely to gain traffic in the new media environment. On the contrary, some content similar to traditional poetry, prose, systematic and in-depth discussions are becoming less and less common in the new media environment, or even almost extinct.
In the new media environment, users can directly generate consumption behaviors through content, which means that the new media content itself has strong commercial value. This has also led to more new media practitioners making up stories, exaggerating the effects, and pursuing "brainwashing" in order to improve marketing effectiveness.
However, the problem lies precisely in that, if we put aside "commercial value" and proceed from the perspective of social responsibility and ethics, whether it is the overflow of emotions or the massive emergence of fabricated and endlessly exaggerated content, it is all unhelpful - it is likely to make everyone more and more irrational and less and less trusting.
3.
Generally speaking, when creating content, we must consider both social responsibility and commercial value. If one only considers responsibility and not business, he may be full of passion but poor; if one only has commercial tendencies but no social responsibility, he may go astray.
From a purely rational perspective, I would advise every student working in new media: when you are unable to create any commercial value, give priority to creating some commercial value for yourself; and when you are already able to create some commercial value, it is best to establish the social values and content ethics that you identify with, and when creating all the content, try to adhere to this principle before considering maximizing the commercial value.
I think that adhering to such principles may not guarantee that you can make profits most efficiently in the short term, but it should most likely ensure that you can go far enough.
Taking the three courses we are currently teaching as an example, we also need to push out a lot of copywriting about course marketing, and pursue the dissemination, influence and reading volume of many contents. Under these two problems, I have the following suggestions for team members:
When it comes to course marketing, you have to believe that the biggest cost users pay for taking a course is time, not money. And, we must believe that if an educational product does not have a good reputation, it is difficult to ensure its long-term vitality;
Based on the above 1, we only recommend courses that have been produced and quality-controlled by us, and we will never recommend courses that we don’t know enough about or that we think cannot guarantee the learning value of users;
We must ensure that every sentence written in the push copy is written by us and we can sincerely believe in and recognize its value (for example, we suggest that students with 1-3 years of experience and no outstanding strengths should try their best to improve their general work skills and methods);
Marketing copy should try to clearly explain the problems that a course can and cannot solve, as well as the suitable and unsuitable users of a course, so as to avoid unsuitable users taking a course, which will waste their time and damage the course's reputation.
In terms of content push, hot topics must be followed, but it is also best to set yourself a clear value boundary and the role you should play, and based on this, judge which hot topics should be followed and which should not be followed, as well as how to follow them. For example, if we define the role that three classes should play as providing more guidance, inspiration and companionship to Internet practitioners aged 1-5, helping them improve their business practice ability, gain more positive values + thinking, and then gain more career development opportunities, then we may not follow hot topics like the Didi Hitch driver killing someone, but for hot topics like the "Ergeng Canteen being closed", we should release some of our positions and expressions, and give you some suggestions;
In the new media environment, I do not recommend that you release excessive emotions. On the contrary, we may need some more powerful attitudes, rational analysis and presentation of facts. We should adhere to the principles of "objectivity, neutrality, and rationality". If we really need to express some emotions and make public appeals, it must be what we are calling for, and it must represent certain values that our entire team publicly praises. For example, we will publicly praise the user value and social value created by Douban, and show an emotion that tends to appreciate it, but we may also rationally criticize some issues in its product definition, operational planning, and business realization.
People who create content should have a bit of awe and compassion for the "content" itself. You must know that content, and the "voice" and "influence" it gives you, is actually a terrible weapon. In front of it, one thought can make you a Buddha, or one thought can make you a devil.
In this dimension, I especially recommend that everyone abide by some basic principles. For example, when quoting other people's opinions, you must indicate the source. For example, if you quote a screenshot of someone else's Moments or WeChat group chat, if the other person is not a public figure, be sure to add a code to protect their basic privacy.
Tell two true stories, one near and one far away. I hope it gives you some food for thought.
Story 1:
A few years ago, the Yao Jiaxin case happened.
I still remember that at that time there was an overwhelming amount of abuse and questioning on Weibo. Many people hated Yao Jiaxin for being a "rich second generation", shouted that "there must be an inside story", and even said that "Yao Jiaxin's death is not enough to appease the public anger". There were also many big Vs and articles like a tide. For a time, countless people were forwarding the Weibo post requesting the execution of Yao Jiaxin, and even added countless curses against his family.
After a while, Yao Jiaxin was sentenced to death. After being cursed on Weibo for several months, Yao Jiaxin's parents showed up and sincerely apologized on behalf of their son. Everyone then realized that they were just an ordinary family, and the speculation that they were "rich second generation" and "family members are high-ranking officials who do all kinds of evil" was out of the question. Even looking back at this time, Yao Jiaxin, who calmly pleaded guilty in the trial and shed tears of regret several times, was just a misguided young man who was confused for a moment but did not even have a chance to turn back for half a year.
As a result, the balance of sympathy shifted again and fell back towards the Yao family. However, countless people who had forwarded the "execution post" and even cursed the Yao family endlessly at that time did not know how to face all this.
Story 2:
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the newspaper industry flourished in the United States. During this wave, in order to grab readers' attention, many American newspapers began to publish a large number of reports related to provocative content such as pornography, suicide, disasters, violence, etc.
Along with them, there are many eye-catching, sensational, and ambiguous headlines, a large number of event narratives whose authenticity cannot be verified and whose sources cannot be traced, and even a large amount of fabricated news appearing in newspapers.
The reason is simple: such content can attract the greatest amount of user attention. In fact, some newspapers have indeed achieved great success, huge sales and reached the peak based on this. They continue to spread emotional, violent, and pornographic content, stirring up readers' emotions and gaining commercial benefits from it.
At the same time, they also created a lot of chaos. For example, the New York Daily News and the New York World at the time exaggerated and fabricated many stories about the inhumane rule of the Spanish rulers in Cuba, hyped up various remarks and ethnic hostility, and finally triggered the Spanish-American War. However, this is not the end, something even more surprising is happening.
On September 14, 1901, the 25th President of the United States McKinley was assassinated. People found a copy of the New York News in the murderer's pocket, and the newspaper contained an article advocating the assassination of the president. Since then, the newspaper has been in disgrace, sales have plummeted, and it eventually went bankrupt and closed down. Taking this incident as a turning point, the American news media began to reflect on themselves and raised a lot of discussions on "media ethics". And gradually formed the social responsibility and media ethics that the media should pay more attention to "the positive impact of text on society".
Author: Huang Youcan , authorized to be published by Qinggua Media .
