Visitors enjoy a stroll through an ancient town in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, on April 30 (XINHUA)

The Daliang Mountains area, or Daliangshan, in the southwestern province of Sichuan features a harmonious blend of nature and culture, which makes the place reputed as an idyllic paradise. However, while nature bestows upon this region breathtaking beauty, the isolation caused by its mountainous and densely forested terrain had also led to long-standing poverty. With the advancement of poverty alleviation efforts in recent years, the region and the stories of people living there have gradually become more widely known to the public.

One widely circulated story about a city girl who ventured deep into the Daliang Mountains and came across a young man from a once impoverished family brims with the vibrant hues of romance: In August 2022, a 27-year-old vlogger named Zhao Ling'er traveled to Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the area, where she met a local young man named Qu Bu who kindly invited her to visit his home. They quickly found great rapport in their conversation and Zhao learned Qu had lost his father at an early age, and he had shouldered the responsibility of taking care of his three younger sisters with his mother. Zhao was soon impressed with his resilience, filial piety and kindness, and fell in love with him.

They began capturing snippets of local life through short videos, which garnered significant attention and amassed millions of followers. Later, they turned to livestreaming as a means to sell local agricultural products to contribute to poverty alleviation for local residents. Their followers, moved by their stories, bought their products to lend a helping hand.

But, this touching sweet story came to a sudden twist on September 20 when what seemed to be a real-world romantic drama was proven to be nothing more than a work of fiction, with a meticulously crafted script.

On that day, authorities in Liangshan, where the Daliang Mountains are located, held a press conference holding Zhao and Qu up as representatives of online influencers misleading consumers through livestreaming sales. The seemingly authentic scenes were actually actors managed by agencies and the so-called local agricultural goods were low-cost imitations from elsewhere. Their manipulation of consumers by appealing to their sympathy resulted in earnings exceeding 10 million yuan ($1.37 million).

To crack down on such malpractices, local authorities have apprehended 54 criminal suspects, including 11 Internet celebrity vloggers, with 18 arrests approved. They have also dismantled five Multi-Channel Network (MCN) organizations and suspended the operations of 14 companies involved. Related social media accounts have been shut down by the platforms.

Abuse of trust

It has been reported that within the seven months they engaged in livestreaming, Zhao and Qu each earned 700,000 yuan ($95,911) and the MCN organization behind them profited even more.

These profits were built on the empathy and trust of countless netizens. A Beijing-based college student named Xu Jianxiang told Beijing Review that he experienced a feeling of disbelief upon seeing the news.

After his visit to Xichang, a city in Liangshan, in 2021, Xu began paying attention to Daliangshan and called on his classmates and family to buy local agricultural products whenever they considered making a purchase. "What truly troubles me is that their livestreaming sales haven't brought the slightest benefit for the local impoverished groups. Instead, it has undermined their credibility and depleted the compassion of netizens like me," Xu said.

Netizens are having extensive discussions on the matter. Some are recalling their own experiences of purchasing subpar products, some are indignant at how these influencers deceived them, and others are swearing never to trust rural livestreamers again.

"Peddling hardship and poverty as commodities is a significant abuse of people's trust. Moreover, the existence of 'fake hardship' inflicts multiple injuries upon local farmers and society as a whole," read one editorial in Farmers' Daily commenting on the event.

There are various versions of livestream scams, with some slightly different from that of Zhao and Qu.

"Uncle, would you like to buy some pomegranates?" The video of a 9-year-old boy from the Daliang Mountains area with a giant backpack, trying to sell the fruit to a passerby quickly accumulated 300 million views online. Upon learning that the boy and his elderly grandmother depended on walking long distances every day to sell pomegranates, the driver in the video bought all the fruit and offered them a ride home. Before getting into the car, the grandmother lay her clothes on the seat to protect it, fearing she might stain it. The video produced plenty of tears.

But this video, too, has now been confirmed to have been staged. In an interview with Chengdu-based Cover News, the grandmother revealed that someone had approached them for the shoot, claiming the video would help them. She confirmed they had nothing to do with the growing of the pomegranates.

"These fabricated videos borrowed the faces of farmers, tarnished their reputation and harmed their interests," the editorial read. "Some of them were misled into unknowingly participating in these videos and this has left many of the subjects who were filmed feeling deeply hurt."

Aside from the social impact, this deceptive and fraudulent live-commerce model can potentially bring negative consequences to the whole livestreaming industry, Hong Yong, an associate researcher with the E-Commerce Institute under the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told Beijing Review.

He added it can lead to skepticism about the authenticity of products, which in turn will affect consumer willingness to make purchases and harm brand reputation. It also causes businesses that operate with integrity to face unfair competition, he said, adding that fraudulent activities like these could prompt regulatory authorities to bring in stricter controls, increasing the industry's regulatory burden, costs and risks.

A double-edged sword

E-commerce has boosted rural economy. The rapid growth of short videos and livestreaming has greatly facilitated the sale of agricultural products in many remote areas, positively contributing to increasing farmer incomes.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, over 1.1 billion live broadcasting sessions on key monitored e-commerce platforms brought in 1.27 trillion yuan ($174 billion) in the first half of 2023, with more than 2.7 million active livestreaming hosts. Live-commerce is on the rise.

The e-commerce transaction volume of Liangshan reached 10.74 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) in 2022, an increase of 6.21 percent year on year, among which livestreaming transactions reached 588 million yuan ($80.56 million), according to the local authorities.

"As live-commerce is becoming increasingly popular, issues associated with it are becoming more evident as well, with instances of malpractices such as pity marketing and misleading advertising being common," an official from the local market supervision bureau told media.

Hong said currently there isn't a fully effective method to accurately identify these scripted videos. While some technological methods can analyze and discern videos to some extent, their efficacy remains limited. Therefore, a combination of technological means and manual review is necessary.

Combating misleading advertising in live-commerce is a complex and ongoing task. This means that the livestream industry will face more compliance challenges and opportunities for policy development. As the government optimizes regulations and standards in the sector and introduces more supportive policies, the industry will move toward healthier and more sustainable development, he added. BR

(Print Edition: Exploiting Empathy)

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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