Ladies and gentlemen, the Hangzhou police have just cracked a major case a few days ago. They have located Qin Lang. Who is this Qin Lang? Qin Lang was almost the most famous person on China's domestic internet during this year's Spring Festival. At that time, the whole internet was searching for Qin Lang, not just the self-media but also the major media. Media like Yangguang Network, Legal Network were all searching. They were saying, "Qin Lang, where are you? Please come out." I was skeptical when I saw this news. At that time, I wondered if this Qin Lang was Qin Gang's illegitimate child. Everyone knows that Qin Gang has been missing for over half a year, a state councilor. He just disappeared mysteriously, and nobody knew where he went, not even the police investigated. But everyone was rumored that Qin Gang was not in the USA Having an illegitimate child with a woman there, jeopardizing national security. If Qin Gang could not be found, finding Qin Gang's child would mean Qin Gang's case could also be half solved. I thought maybe this Qin Lang is Qin Gang's child, but it turns out he's not. Then who is Qin Lang? Qin Lang is just a primary school student. But how did this primary school student become such a focal point in a nationwide search? It's a bit of a long story, originally there was an internet celebrity in China called Maoyibei. Maoyibei went to Paris during the Spring Festival. Something strange happened, today I was actually on the streets of Paris when a French person handed me winter vacation homework. XX Primary School, Class 1 Grade 8, Qin Lang, Class 1 Grade 8, Qin Lang Your winter vacation homework fell into the Paris restroom. Don't blame me, it's not that I don't want to help you, it was the French person who asked me to return it to you. Let's take a look at the completion progress - not done at all. Went next door and bought a pencil. She saw that not a single word was written on the homework. She must have thought, it's not easy for this primary student, traveling to France with his parents, and still having to carry this homework notebook, and then there was no time to do it. What to do? Quietly, she just threw the homework into the toilet. Then Maoyibei is a young girl, seeing this scene must have felt moved, a maternal instinct suddenly arose. So she decided to buy a pen and do the homework for this primary student. Use your imagination to complete the sentences, that simple. Full marks for self-expression, add a few more. This is all I can help you with, have a pleasant holiday. After finishing, she said at the airport when she was returning home, "I've brought the homework notebook back for you, I'll give it to you after I return to the country." Now at Paris Charles de Gaulle, ready to fly back home, I've brought your winter vacation homework. Finished in one evening, no need to thank. After returning home, this video was uploaded online. Maoyibei is now a contemporary internet celebrity. She has around 20 million followers across various platforms online, mainly on TikTok. So when her video went online, it immediately sparked a huge discussion across the web. Many people were saying, "Where exactly is this Qin Lang?" This Maoyibei, she's brought your homework notebook back. Following this, various media started re-sharing, and during this process, everyone was looking for who this Qin Lang is. But at that time, the clues were too scarce, because at that time Maoyibei only mentioned Qin Lang from Class 1 Grade 8. Then quickly, a clue came on February 17 of this year; Qin Lang's uncle showed up. Stop rushing me; I'll show you what's next when I wake up. Qin Lang's uncle said he has a very good relationship with his nephew, his mother seems to not be very strict with the child, so as an uncle, he felt quite embarrassed, so when he saw his nephew's homework book lost in Paris, he felt particularly remorseful and specifically went to a bookstore to buy several new homework books for his nephew, and these didn't require many questions to be answered or many words to be written, they could be done in a few minutes, too easy. Following that, the next day he hosted a live stream online. His uncle's appearance provided a very detailed piece of information. He said his nephew Qin Lang attends Xichang Elementary School (misspoke) His own IP is from Jiangsu, so think about it, that gets specific. As a result, Xichang Elementary School in Jiangsu (misspoke) there were only two such schools People quickly called these two Xichang Middle Schools to verify with the media Qin Lang does not belong to our school There are only four classes per grade, right? Yes Online it says he's in Class 8, so we don't have a Class 8, do we? No, we don't So Qin Lang was not found at Xichang Middle School in Jiangsu Expanded the search nationwide, including Xichang Middle Schools in Luoyang, Henan, and Beihai, Guangxi These two cities also have Xichang Middle Schools These two Xichang Middle Schools were searched, but Qin Lang, the primary school student, was not found So everyone was suspicious at that time Just then, on February 19th, the police arrested Qin Lang's uncle Saying that Qin Lang's uncle was spreading rumors Qin Lang's uncle admitted on the same day, saying he was actually just riding the wave of popularity It's not fake, I told you, it was just for clout Click to report, yes, yes, yes, good brothers, click to report He saw Maoyibei's video was viral online Then, the topic of finding primary school student Qin Lang was very popular on all websites He just wanted to ride the popularity wave, pretending to be Qin Lang's uncle Honestly, nowadays on the domestic internet, as long as there is a hot topic There will always be various people coming out to ride the wave You see this everywhere on TikTok's short video platform now Then, on the same day, a teacher of Qin Lang appeared, saying Qin Lang's homework was indeed lost Then, Maoyibei also communicated with his teacher a bit Saying, "I have already done the homework for him." So on February 19th, Qin Lang's uncle was not arrested, right? Following that day, Maoyibei also released a video Everyone was watching the video of me picking up the winter vacation homework in Paris First of all, I want to clarify that I really did not expect so many people to watch It was written on the notebook, the school and class, he is not from Xichang Elementary School I didn't say which school he was from, you just said it was Xichang Elementary School Not Xichang Elementary School, what Xichang Elementary School His school, can't say ah can't say this is someone's privacy can't say Don't self-identify in the comments section, even if I can't say, I have been messaging back one by one I have already contacted the other party's mother, so no need to look further After communicating, the other party does not want to appear on camera, so we shouldn't disturb their life So with this, we consider the matter satisfactorily resolved Why does she emphasize that what she filmed is real Because after this event, there was a bunch of debate online Then some people said, "This Maoyibei, her video is fake." Then at that time, some fans of Maoyibei immediately came out and said What Maoyibei films is all real And on February 19th, Red Star News even specifically interviewed The MCN company that Maoyibei is associated with That MCN company also specifically stated that what Maoyibei filmed is all real There's nothing fake, it's all real So then Maoyibei came out and said, what we filmed is all real Found Qin Lang's mother and returned the homework notebook to him She thought that with this, the matter was basically over Unexpectedly, two months later, the Hangzhou police came out and said The entire event was all orchestrated by Maoyibei And someone named Xue Momo, the two of them planned it together The video was entirely staged by themselves, Qin Lang doesn't exist at all Then, due to the significant impact caused Therefore, administrative penalties were imposed on Maoyibei and Xue Momo On the same day, Maoyibei came out specifically to apologize to the netizens Hello everyone, I am Maoyibei, I previously posted a video online About a primary student, Qin Lang, losing his winter vacation homework in Paris This entire incident was fabricated by me, I apologize to everyone here. I deeply regret and apologize for this. At the same time, all the public platforms where Maoyibei was active, such as TikTok, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, her accounts were all blown up, she enjoyed the same treatment as me. At the same time, Maoyibei’s online store was also blown up. Maoyibei also has a platform on YouTube, I see she already has 389,000 followers. After this incident, they changed their name, but her TikTok is still active. The whole story of this event is just as described. So when this story got out internationally, many people were baffled, saying it was just a small matter, and Maoyibei was completely banned online for it. Her online store was shut down, and the MCN company was dealt with, was that necessary? So today, I’m here to share my views on this matter. First, let’s introduce Maoyibei. Maoyibei is a girl from Guangzhou, she studied in France. Last year, because of the pandemic, she couldn’t go back, so she stayed in Guangzhou. While stuck in Guangzhou, she started making short videos. Everyone knows now is the era when anyone can be a short video blogger. Maoyibei is quite pretty, and initially online, she mainly complained about France. Talking about how there’s no air conditioning in the rooms in France. At the time, many people found it very strange, saying such a developed country and yet the rooms don’t have air conditioning. Then she got a bit of fame. And then she made a video that suddenly went viral, where she was eating lettuce leaves, her actions looked very much like a guinea pig. This video brought her millions of likes and millions of followers overnight. Suddenly, she went from an ordinary international student to an internet celebrity, think about it, millions of followers. Then she started her own company, and began working as a professional short video blogger. Her growth was quite rapid. I saw that her videos are mainly humorous, all sorts of comedic content. To be honest, I watched her comedic videos, and I didn’t find them very funny, her jokes are not that sophisticated. They are basically the kind that try to make you laugh forcibly. But such content is quite popular on the domestic internet. So in about a year, she amassed about 10 million followers, and together with other platforms, that’s about 20 to 30 million followers, a major internet celebrity. The commercial interest and value of a major internet celebrity are immense. Now, the advertising price for one of her videos is 400,000 RMB, with smaller TikTok videos priced at 150,000, and about 100,000 on Xiaohongshu. Think about that, the commercial value is enormous. When I saw these prices, to be honest, I felt a bit envious, think about us making YouTube shows, every episode carefully crafted with scripts, and then comparing information, actually, the ad revenue share for one episode is just about 10-20,000 RMB. Think about it, they make a short video of one or two minutes, a girl just from ad fees can get 450,000, over 400,000. This truly makes my heart ache, If I could be such a short video blogger, I wouldn’t want to be doing this tough job. Such a labor-intensive and thankless job. Everyone knows that short video creation has its bottlenecks, like how do you keep producing content continuously? Maoyibei has talked about this in other communications, saying she doesn’t really have any bottleneck anxiety, just needs to keep thinking creatively. Many people ask me, you update so frequently, don’t you have a creative bottleneck? Don’t you feel anxious? Whenever I can't think of content, I share my previous videos and reflect on the mindset. You would see, wow, this girl is so talented, how does she think of these? I definitely want to create content similar to what she thought of. When you're feeling down and find there are still videos by Maoyibei, or videos by other funny bloggers, I can just open and watch. She makes me feel like I can throw away all my unhappiness for today. I think that's enough. She positions herself quite accurately, basically saying, I'm just here to make you laugh after work. So, she actually doesn’t feel much of this so-called bottleneck anxiety. But frankly, in my opinion, she still does. Think about the current short video platforms, what she does has strictly scripted content. You can’t produce it without a script. These scripts require very clever planning and ideas. If you don't have good planning and ideas, no one will watch what you film. Moreover, if you’ve reached a certain level of traffic and your audience becomes disappointed, honestly, the lifespan of internet celebrities is quite short. If you can’t continuously attract netizens and disappoint them several times in a row, then slowly your status as an internet celebrity might not hold. So Maoyibei’s ability to create hype or such content is actually quite strong. Gradually, she started to attract the audience’s attention by making fake content videos. One of the most famous fake videos she made was about claiming that Notre Dame de Paris was rebuilt by the Chinese. She said online, "Have you seen Notre Dame being repaired? It’s because we Chinese went over to help them fix it, that's why it got done." This catered to the nationalist sentiment of Chinese netizens, touting the Chinese as construction giants who can build anything, not just bridges but also help restore the heritage like Notre Dame left by their ancestors. But later, when someone checked, there was no such thing at all. No Chinese company was involved in any of the construction units of Notre Dame. But the video she spread at that time made many people believe it was true. So this time, she really overstepped the bounds. She made it look particularly like a news report, and especially egregious was that when Red Star News went to verify this information, they denied it, still claiming it was true. So from my personal perspective, I think Maoyibei making this kind of funny staged video without clarifying online is indeed a bit problematic. But if you look at her genre, if you watch her programs, watching a few more videos, you’ll know she's just a comedy blogger. She's purely a comedy blogger, and you wouldn't mistake her for a news agency. So in my view, this incident with Maoyibei causing such a big reaction this time, many people thought Qin Lang really existed and started looking for him, the main reason is not because Maoyibei released this video, but because those media that shared it did not verify the information at the time. You should know our traditional media are also on short video platforms and on social media with various accounts; they actually also suffer from traffic anxiety. Because serious news can't compete with these comedic bloggers for traffic, so sometimes these media also piggyback on the traffic of short video bloggers. Seeing which topics by bloggers are high in traffic, they also try to ride on that. So look at that Yangguang Network, Who is Yangguang Network? It’s the official CCTV state broadcaster, with Shen Haixiong as the president. And they shared this information at the time without any verification. They were also looking for Qin Lang. So the spread of this news turning this incident into a fabricated news story, the main responsibility actually lies with those so-called traditional media, not with the comedy blogger Maoyibei. So if you're talking about who is the biggest culprit for misusing social resources, it's not Maoyibei, but those traditional media outlets. They failed to fulfill their duty of verification. Even if this was real, could this be called news? Does this have anything to do with news? One or two media outlets sharing it is one thing, but countless media sharing it? Can this be called news? Is this journalism? Is there no real news left to report? If there's no real news, they might as well be laid off early. Don't waste the resources of the news media, right? Post something valuable. To put it bluntly, just change the name of these media outlets. If The New York Times reported a story about an American kid losing his American winter homework in a Chinese restaurant, what would you think? Would you think The New York Times is a major media outlet? Would you think The New York Times is authoritative? You would think it's just a tabloid. The second point about this Maoyibei incident is that she spread false information, but did she infringe on anyone’s rights? Or if she did infringe, who should claim their rights? Now the police have stepped in, they have detained Maoyibei for interrogation, Maoyibei admitted, and then they penalized them. In my view, if there are victims, it would just be Xichang Middle School. But the problem is Xichang Middle School was not mentioned by Maoyibei. It was mentioned by "Qin Lang's uncle", in quotes, Qin Lang’s uncle. Qin Lang’s uncle is fake. So Qin Lang's uncle might have actually infringed on some rights of Xichang Middle School. Anyway, if Xichang Middle School feels its rights were violated, the one who should claim rights should be Xichang Middle School. We always talk about criminal law, including the police, they should ideally play a more passive role in society. So if the police step into such disputes, using such a massive force over such matters, everyone noticed, after the news was released, Hangzhou police almost set up a special team. We also checked relevant records of elementary students matching Qin Lang's age who might have left the country. From what we found, there was no matching record of Qin Lang, the elementary student, leaving the country. This further strengthened our belief that the video involved internet fabrication. They checked immigration records and investigated Xichang Middle Schools across the country. Is that necessary? Too proactive. If Xichang Middle School feels its rights were harmed, then let it sue Maoyibei. If Maoyibei were sued for one or two million, maybe then Maoyibei would think twice before doing such things. If Maoyibei had to pay a fine of one or two million, maybe then she would hesitate to repeat such actions. The problem in China now is that issues like Maoyibei’s, which should be resolved through civil remedies, find the civil channels not smooth and hard to navigate, and then eventually the police come out and clarify the situation. In the end, the individuals involved are punished, this is the Chinese approach to solving problems. But this approach can be very harmful. Firstly, I want to ask, is this approach really effective? Can it truly prevent these short video bloggers from making such staged videos? I don't think it can. Why? Now, if you look at Bilibili, if you look at TikTok, the use of scripts to stage tragic events, and all sorts of bizarre plots, are plentiful in such videos. And these videos do not declare themselves as staged or fictional. Some even subtly suggest they are real, they are numerous. If you applied the same standard, then maybe 80% of the bloggers on Bilibili and TikTok would have to be arrested. Have you achieved that? No, you haven’t, so it’s selective enforcement. And selective enforcement, especially since such videos have a huge market and people are willing to watch, they become popular and then once you're popular, there's also a great commercial value. In such a case, if you're not punishing everyone equally, you'll never completely eradicate this phenomenon. Although the police claim to be fighting internet rumors and rectifying online culture, trying to set an example, in my view, it's unachievable. That's the second point. Thirdly, in a healthy society, it's not a rumor-free society. I believe rumors are part of society. Rumors are inherent to human nature; the readiness to believe certain statements is the soil in which rumors thrive. In any healthy society, it's nearly impossible to be free of rumors. So why did this incident capture so many people's attention? Isn't it analyzed that it's because of the current push to reduce burdens, involving children, and her actions made it seem like the government's measures weren't being implemented? Ultimately, it's when people are willing to believe certain information that rumors have the potential to spread. Including the rumor Maoyibei spread that Notre Dame was rebuilt by the Chinese. Why did it become a widely spread rumor? Because many Chinese were willing to believe in the narrative of 'Amazing China'. If one day someone said the White House's maintenance was done by the Chinese, it would likely spread even wider, catering to a certain psychological need. To expect to completely eliminate rumors is unrealistic. In our society, we can only aim to reduce the harm caused by rumors to a manageable extent. For instance, the so-called false rumors spread by Maoyibei, if we classify them as rumors, their societal harm is quite minimal. Is it necessary to deploy the police for such severe punishment? At least in my view, it's completely unnecessary. If the police were to penalize such behavior, for these so-called unreal statements, it would only cause a chilling effect. Because people don't know where the boundaries are; overnight, the commercial value could drop to zero. All the effort, her company, her employees, all their hard work could just vanish. The uncertainty and the risk it brings are far greater than the so-called harm a rumor could do to society. And moreover, don't those official media spread rumors themselves? Aren't their fake news broadcasts plentiful? Were they punished? No. But you harshly penalize a young girl, a private media creator, for spreading such unverified information, is it just because she lacks power? At the end of the day, isn't it because when you spread rumors, you have power? The distinction here isn't about the rumor, it's about power. If this logic is clearly understood, everyone will realize that in such a society, it's not that you can't spread rumors, it's that only those with power are allowed to spread them. You don't believe me? Now, if the Hangzhou police could find Qin Gang for me, if they could find out where he is, then I'd say they're capable. What's finding Qin Lang worth? Alright, I'll end here today, thank you everyone. If this kind of logic is seen through, everyone will understand that in such a society, it's not that you aren't allowed to spread rumors, it's that only those with power are allowed to spread them. If you think the Hangzhou police can find Qin Gang, and if they manage to find him, then I'll admit they're effective. What skill is there in finding Qin Lang? Alright, I'll stop here today, thank you all. That's all for today, thank you. Class 1-8, Qin Lang, you left your winter homework in a Paris restroom. Now at Charles de Gaulle Airport ready to return to China, winter homework. Can this be called news? Is this related to journalism? One or two media sharing it is one thing, but countless media sharing it, can this be called news? Is this journalism? We also checked for elementary students matching Qin Lang's age group to see if any had left the country. From what we found, there was no matching record of Qin Lang, the elementary student, leaving the country. What do you want to say? I want to ask if you think Xi is a dictator? This person seriously violates live streaming standards. This person seriously violates live streaming standards, I'll disconnect him immediately. Is this person crazy? This person, is he crazy? My goodness, this person, this person is too dangerous, this person. This person will definitely have someone looking for him, this person will definitely have someone looking for him.
