Li Jiaqi And Simba In The Whirlpool: How Do Anchors Take Responsibility For "False Publicity"?

Behind the frequent problems of live delivery, it reflects that there is still a regulatory gap in the industry.

Recently, the Israeli brand tripolar (hereinafter referred to as "chup") is suspected of falsely publicizing "FDA certification". Tripollar agent Nanjing leopard e-commerce Co., Ltd. said that in receiving the documents from Israeli manufacturers, many of its products were approved by the US FDA, and the same technology has been applied to the latest products. Due to translation problems, it is briefly described as "FDA technical certification".

It is worth mentioning that on the day of Li Jiaqi's double 11 pre-sale live broadcast, the sales volume of tripollar beauty instrument once exceeded 100 million yuan. On December 28, for follow-up consumer related problems, relevant people of Meijian (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd., a company affiliated to Li Jiaqi, said in an interview with the 21st century economic report that the brand would provide detailed solutions to problems such as returns. "We are not responsible for the after-sales problems."

However, as to whether the FDA's listing license is equivalent to technical certification and the follow-up solutions, relevant people from Nanjing leopard e-commerce Co., Ltd. refused to interview the 21st century economic report.

Tripollar is not the first brand to be exposed. In the year of rapid development of live e-commerce, problems emerge in endlessly. According to Meng Huixin, an analyst in the legal rights and interests section of the e-commerce research center of Netcom, the problem of false product publicity in live broadcasting such as Simba and Luo Yonghao, which has been intensively exposed recently, is not an accident. It just shows that the live delivery industry needs comprehensive supervision. "Severe punishment mechanism should be established for deliberate fraud and false publicity of brand owners. At the same time, the anchor should also perform the obligation of audit when selecting the products. "

Exaggeration is common

At the end of the year, the once spectacular live e-commerce industry was also deeply involved in the storm of public opinion. Recently, Xinba (real name: Xin Youzhi), the anchor of fast hand, was accused of selling bird's nest as sugar water. After testing, it was found that the bird's nest sold in its live broadcasting room was exaggerated. In fact, the product contains less than 2 grams of bird's nest per bowl. For this, Simba apologized and promised consumers who bought bird's nest to "refund one for three" and pay a total of 61.98 million yuan.

Subsequently, according to the Anti Unfair Competition Law of the people's Republic of China and other provisions, Guangzhou municipal market supervision and Administration Bureau proposed to order it to stop illegal activities and impose a fine of 2 million yuan. At the same time, the express platform also gave a 60 day penalty for Simba's account number.

Coincidentally, Taobao anchor Li Jiaqi also fell into the storm of false brand publicity. Prior to this, Meijian (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd. issued a statement in response to the statement that according to the information provided by the merchants, it conducted various qualification examinations on the product to ensure that it met the relevant national regulations before the live promotion.

As of press release, the 21st century economic report has been seen in several official flagship stores of tripolar, such as Taobao and Jingdong, and the information related to FDA of the products involved has been completely cleared. Previously, the company has changed "FDA certification" to "FDA approval" in its product purchase introduction page. This is not the first time Li Jiaqi has been questioned by false propaganda.

At the end of November, Shanghai Chongming district market supervision bureau's decision on administrative punishment revealed that Shanghai Zhuangjia e-commerce Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Zhuangjia company") was fined 10000 yuan on June 10, 2020 for publishing false advertisements. Consumers bought feishikou shampoo in the company's tmall online store (exclusive store of Li Jiaqi), and the store falsely advertised its anti hair loss function on the Internet, but the company was unable to provide relevant basis.

Although the matter was dealt with by fine and return, the degree of punishment is still not enough to constitute a warning in the eyes of the legal profession. According to the second paragraph of Article 24 of the anti unfair competition law, if an advertising agent acts as an agent, designs, produces or publishes false advertisements, the supervision and inspection department shall order it to stop the illegal act, confiscate the illegal income and impose a fine according to law. The fine stipulated in Article 37 of the advertising law refers to a fine of more than one time and less than five times the advertising expenses. If the circumstances are serious, the advertising business may be stopped; if a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility shall be investigated according to law.

However, Article 55 of the law on the protection of the rights and interests of consumers stipulates that if a business operator commits fraud in providing goods or services, it shall, at the request of the consumer, increase the compensation by three times the price of the commodity purchased or the fee for receiving the service; if the increase in the amount of compensation is less than 500 yuan, it shall be 500 yuan.

Chaos needs to be standardized

Public data show that the market scale of live e-commerce industry is expanding as the rapid development of online shopping in recent years. According to a report released by KPMG and Ali Research Institute, the overall scale of China's live e-commerce will reach 1050 billion yuan in 2020. This means that the rapid development of live e-commerce will officially enter the "trillion" era this year. However, behind the prosperity, there are problems such as fake live data, low product quality and poor after-sales service. It is urgent to standardize the management of the "trillion" market.

During this year's double 11, the Consumer Association of China released the "double 11" consumer rights protection public opinion analysis report, which revealed that during the "double 11" promotion activities this year, the negative consumption information mainly focused on two aspects: live delivery with goods and unreasonable rules. During the monitoring period, the platform collected more than 330000 pieces of negative information about "live with goods", among which the public opinion information on November 11 was the highest. The "slot points" of live broadcasting with goods mainly focus on two aspects: star with goods suspected of fraud, low after-sales service satisfaction and poor experience.

According to public reports, Nanjing leopard e-commerce Co., Ltd., as the general agent of Israel beauty instrument brand tripolar Chupu in China, was twice punished by the market supervision department for publishing false advertising and advertising content that belittles peer products. At present, the company and tripolar brand have not given a clear solution to the after-sales problems caused by its false publicity.

As a matter of fact, due to the unclear definition of responsibilities between the business and the anchor, it is also an important reason for consumers' dissatisfaction to "kick the ball" each other in case of after-sales problems. As a result, near the end of the year, market regulatory departments and consumer rights organizations at all levels across the country have also begun to speak out, jointly promoting the healthy and standardized development of online economy through special law enforcement and administrative interviews.

Hu Gang, a member of the high tech special committee of the all China Lawyers Association and lawyer, said in an interview with the 21st century economic report that there is no significance in using FDA certification for publicity. As long as a foreign product meets the requirements of the U.S. Food and drug administration, it will be approved by the FDA. "Sales in the Chinese market need to comply with China's relevant regulatory systems and standards, so advertising with FDA may cause misleading and confusing."

How to define the responsibility of the anchor?

It is worth noting that after the "sugar water bird's nest incident" in Simba, the "pircardin" sweater sold in Luo Yonghao's live room was also identified as fake. In response, Luo Yonghao issued a statement saying that the suppliers of the sweater, Shanghai Weixun Technology Co., Ltd. and Tongxiang Tengyun e-commerce Co., Ltd., were suspected of forging documents, counterfeiting fake and inferior commodities, and suspected of deliberate fraud. Subsequently, Luo Yonghao paid three times to consumers, involving more than 20000 orders.

What kind of responsibility should the anchor bear for the false publicity of the sold products? Hu Gang analysis that live broadcast is more like an advertising service. However, because the detailed guidance of live broadcasting is very accurate, consumers can't simply judge that this is advertising behavior when they see the promotion and then place an order. The anchor is actually an operator or a seller. "The anchor and the actual brand shipper together constitute the operator. If there is a problem, consumers can claim their rights to all parties. Especially in terms of false notification, if it constitutes fraud to consumers, the anchor also needs to bear the responsibility. "

In his view, the administrative fine is on the one hand, the most important thing is to let consumers get full compensation, and even get punitive compensation, which is the most important. "False publicity infringes on consumers' right to know. The punitive compensation of one compensation for three is of great benefit to the promotion of social integrity. What's more important is to raise the awareness of the operators' active compliance with the law or compliance. "

On November 3, the state cyber information office issued the "Internet live marketing information content service management regulations (Draft)", which for the first time made direct provisions on the falsification of live broadcast service flow and false publicity. In the vacuum period before the release of relevant regulations, all parties concerned in the live broadcasting industry are also looking forward to further strengthening the supervision and regulation of live delivery.

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