Compere: Gather the wisdom of academic circles and take the pulse of China economy. Hello, audience and friends, welcome to the "Economic Roundtable" program jointly sponsored by Economic Daily, China Economic Net and the news client of Economic Daily. I’m Gillette, the host today. Today, our topic is: What should we do in the face of food rumors? We are honored to have invited three guests, namely:
Gong Jianping, Deputy Director of the Information and Publicity Department of the State Food and Drug Administration
Zhang Yipeng, Vice President of Yili Group
Kai Zhong, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center.
Gong Jianping: Hello.
Moderator: Zhang Yipeng, Vice President of Yili Group. Hello, manager Zhang.
Zhang Yipeng: Hello, audience friends.
Moderator: Kai Zhong, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center. Hello, Director Zhong.
Kai Zhong: Hello, everyone.
Moderator: Welcome to all of you.
Moderator: Food safety is related to everyone’s health and life safety, and it is a major concern of the people. It can be said that with the joint efforts of all walks of life, the overall food safety situation in China is constantly improving. However, restricted by many factors, there is still a big gap between China’s food safety level and the people’s subjective feelings. In the field of food safety, there are some chaos, such as food safety rumors, which will seriously affect food safety and food enterprises. At the beginning of the year, a rumor of "plastic laver" caused hundreds of millions of yuan in losses to the laver industry in Fujian. In the face of food rumors, it is difficult for many people to tell the truth from the false. Although some rumors are ridiculous, most people are prone to have the psychology of "believing in it rather than believing in it". Many netizens are also curious, why are food rumors emerging one after another? It seems that every once in a while, some new rumors will appear in Weibo, WeChat and friends circle. What are the characteristics of these rumors when they spread, and where did they come from? We would like to ask you to talk about where today’s food rumors come from and how they spread. Please welcome Director Gong to introduce us.
Gong Jianping: Good audience, hello everyone. With the rapid development of the Internet, rumors spread like wildfire at the same time. The field of food safety is also the hardest hit area of online rumors. The reason why food rumors emerge one after another is that firstly, there is no zero risk in food safety; secondly, there is asymmetry in food safety information; thirdly, the public’s scientific literacy cognition is different, so the overall situation needs to be improved.
In the past, food safety rumors often appeared in the form of pictures and truth, but in recent years, they were broadcast in the form of videos, which made it more difficult for ordinary netizens to identify them. The main reasons are as follows: First, some people hired black public relations and water army to maliciously fabricate and spread food safety rumors. Second, some WeChat official account localized food safety rumors, which earned the attention of the public and improved the income of advertising; Third, some competitors with ulterior motives deliberately spread rumors by smearing, with the intention of seeking illegitimate market interests.
According to statistics, food safety information in online rumors has now accounted for 45%. There are four aspects to analyze these food safety rumors:
1. Intentionally fabricated with ulterior motives, the rumourer ignored the facts, fabricated the so-called truth out of thin air, and even directed and performed it, concocted videos, etc. For example, in February 2017, several videos showing "plastic laver" were widely spread on the Internet. Some people in the video said that laver produced in Jinjiang, Fujian Province was made of plastic, and it was said that laver produced in Jinjiang, Fujian Province was made of plastic, and it smelled fishy.
2. The concept of stealing is confusing. The rumourer uses exaggeration and distortion of facts to attract attention with the headline party, and frequently uses irritating language such as toxic, carcinogenic and lethal to fool the public’s cognition.
3, the old news is deliberately smeared and rumors are based on food and drug safety incidents. The purpose of misleading people in consumption is to change the head of what happened in the past.
4. Teasing and mocking negative communication. The disseminators dub clips from films and videos to make teasing and mocking clips and videos. On the Internet, they use young people as the mainstay and young audiences to spread by taking advantage of their psychological characteristics of hunting. Such rumors seem harmless, but in the process of refining the punchline, they change the description of the facts and tease the mainstream concept and the government image, which has formed a negative impact in a subtle way, and the follow-up effect will be difficult to eliminate for a long time.
Moderator: Mr. Zhang, where do you think these rumors come from?
Zhang Yipeng: As far as the spread of rumors is concerned, I think as the Director said, more rumors come from new media, especially from the media. These channels actually have a feature, that is, the randomness of communication, and the speed of communication is also very fast. For us, it is difficult to control this way of communication. Therefore, I think this is one of its characteristics and the direction of communication.
In order to solve this problem, it is ultimately necessary to talk about the quality of products from the perspective of product quality of enterprises, so as to convince consumers and let consumers rationally understand the rumors of food. I’ll just say so much briefly. The Chief Secretary has already said a lot in detail.
Moderator: Director Zhong, you are an expert in food science popularization. What special ways or characteristics do you think it has in spreading food rumors?
Kai Zhong: Actually, just now, Director Gong’s analysis has been very comprehensive. In my observation, if there are more rough points, there should be two kinds of rumors. One is rumor, which is a rumor, and the other is a somewhat unintentional loss. The information between people is slowly distorted, and finally it becomes a very sensational story, which is somewhat understandable, but rumor has a certain purpose, to create a negative news to attack enterprises or win the masses.
Kai Zhong: Actually, Director Gong’s analysis just now has been very comprehensive. From my observation, there may be two kinds of rumors divided in a thicker way. One kind is that it will gradually distort during the dissemination process, which I actually think is inevitable, such as what I told my mother, what my mother told my father, and what my father told my daughter-in-law. At this time, the distortion of information may actually be a rumor. However, it was an unintentional mistake, and there is no need to be too harsh. However, it is necessary to guard against the rumor maker or to strengthen the blow to him. He is completely trying to make a negative news, to be negative to a certain enterprise or industry, or to expose his eyes to satisfy his vanity and economic interests. We should pay more attention to this purposeful rumor maker.
Compere: We find that food rumors occur almost every year. This year, "plastic" bears a lot of blame, from plastic laver and plastic rice to plastic fans. The way of communication has also taken advantage of the east wind of the Internet and become a so-called short video to expose the truth. What harm do you think such rumors will bring? Can you tell us something about this, manager Zhang?
Zhang Yipeng: I think there are two aspects. In the first aspect, from the perspective of national health, if food rumors confuse us, then our consumers may have some doubts about the choice of food, which will cause some doubts about some choices that are thought to be safe and meet national standards. This will have an impact on consumers. In the final analysis, this impact is a final impact on the nutrition and health of their choices. I think this is the nutrition and health of the people. Even some consumers have some doubts about the choice of some products that are originally of high quality, which has a great influence. The former Director also talked about it, and Teacher Chen also talked about it, because some people with ulterior motives make rumors out of different intentions, which actually affects consumers’ choices. I think the ultimate victims are consumers and the nutrition and health of the people. This is the first aspect.
The second aspect I think is the direct impact on the food industry and food enterprises. As we all know, the food industry is an industry with a particularly long industrial chain, and it is also very complicated in this industry. Therefore, if a rumor has a certain impact on the consumer market of one of our products, it will actually have a certain impact on all links in the related industrial chain. Then if this influence reaches a certain level, I think it is not a problem of an enterprise, or even an industry. This has a greater impact.
Especially for some leading food enterprises, if their related products are affected by rumors and their brands are unintentionally slandered, I think it may be more difficult to recover, and the leading enterprises have great influence on the industry, so if such brands are damaged, I think it will also affect the development of the whole industry. I think it is the influence of these two aspects.
Moderator: The rumor of Director Zhong is certainly harmful to enterprises. Do you think it is harmful to other aspects of our society besides enterprises?
Kai Zhong: Actually, no matter who the rumor hurts, it is actually every consumer who is ultimately hurt. The enterprise has lost money. Think about what it should do. It’s going to lay off employees. Who is it? But those workers are also our common people, and we say that the meat is rotten in the pot, and who will lose in the end when the economy is damaged? It is the common people who pay the bill, and it is typical for the government, especially for news like plastic laver. Imagine that if the really plastic laver enters the market in an imposing manner, what will the government supervise? It means that the public’s trust in government supervision no longer exists, and such things can be listed. Such rumors are not only a blow to consumer confidence, but also a blow to the credibility of the government and the interests of enterprises. In the end, it is the common people, every common people.
Moderator: What do you think, Director Gong?
Gong Jianping: Just now, two enterprises, expert Zhang Zongzhong, I think they are both right. First of all, I think that in this respect, it disturbs social order, hurts the credibility of the government, affects the public’s confidence in food safety, and poses a great threat to social harmony and stability. Second, just now, General Manager Zhang also said that once a leading enterprise is damaged by rumors, it will first affect the normal development order of the industry and cause great economic losses to the industry, which will also have a very adverse impact on China’s economic development.
Moderator: Food rumors have a bad influence, but we have a question here. Is food rumors chaotic only in our country? Can you tell us something about the international situation in this regard?
Kai Zhong: Actually, this rumor can be interpreted from the perspective of honesty. You need to take responsibility for rumors. In foreign countries, you have a very good and sound foundation with a good credit system. If you make rumors, this person may think that you are untrustworthy and may be unable to do a lot of things. After China finished making rumors, he found that this person is actually very poor and has no ability to bear this responsibility. Maybe the public will condemn him. But it doesn’t mean that there are no rumors abroad. Let me give you a few typical examples. Some people may have heard that milk causes cancer, and this rumor is also very popular in China. But this rumor actually originated from the United States. Some people in the United States said that milk causes cancer and then spread it to China. Another example is that there are soles in bread, which is actually an American online celebrity. He posted an article on his blog, saying that there were shoes in subway, and immediately speculation began in China. Many rumors in China were called "import rumors", and many rumors also came from abroad. Including many times before, ice cubes were not as good as toilet water, which was first made in the United States and Britain. After China saw this, he found it interesting. After comparing ice cubes with toilet water, he moved the news back to China. I looked up a lot of such news abroad. Eating ice cubes and toothbrushes are all compared with toilet water, because they think toilet water is disgusting. What kind of water is toilet water?It is tap water, so the purpose of doing this news is to scare the public. In fact, many foreign news also contains hype.
Moderator: What kind of information do you know about Director Gong?
Gong Jianping: Just now, expert Zhong also talked about this issue. I think there are differences in laws in the United States. According to different situations, American laws punish the remarks against rumors by different means. Therefore, we mainly pay attention to domestic things in this respect, and we just make a comparison abroad. I am not sure about this thing, because I don’t pay much attention to this aspect. The main false advertisements are not only in China, but also abroad.
Gong Jianping: There are generally three forms of online rumors cracked down by American laws. One is aimed at a specific group of people or the collective, and the other is hatred or discrimination against a specific group. Third, it threatens the public’s safety. In these three cases, different laws are applied and different punishment means are available.
Moderator: Mr. Zhang, what about the international food rumors you have learned?
Zhang Yipeng: In fact, no matter which country the rumors come from, and no matter which country has more food rumors, the current food industry as a whole is global. How do you say it? That is to say, the food industry in various countries is yours and mine. As far as dairy products are concerned, the global integration of dairy products has long been formed. In fact, no matter where the rumors come from, the impact on the industry is not just one country. In fact, it requires all our partners, especially an international strategic food enterprise like ours, to work together with relevant partners to make relevant standards and coordinate the control of product quality. First of all, we must control the quality of our products.
On the other hand, I think we should spread our positive and objective knowledge about food safety together, so that we can make a reasonable explanation in front of rumors and make consumers trust.
Moderator: As far as we know, there is no lack of interest behind food rumors. Some people also believe that the reason for rumors is not only because our illegal cost is too low. What policies have been introduced in our country for rumor control? How should the government crack down on some food rumors? Director Gong, please introduce us.
Gong Jianping: Well, the government really needs to crack down on food rumors, so it promotes the establishment of a long-term mechanism of social co-ownership, stimulates the strength of the whole society, and enables government departments, professionals, including enterprises, news media and the public to form a joint force to crush rumors in a five-in-one manner and form a three-dimensional governance model of the whole chain. In this regard, I think there are five points: 1. Government departments should release authoritative information in time and reduce the space for rumors with proper words. 2, to increase the intensity of popular science propaganda, enhance the public’s quality of food safety science, enhance the public’s ability to identify food rumors, so that science can run in front of rumors. 3. It is necessary to intensify rumors, establish a real-time monitoring system and a database of rumors through various rumors platforms, and achieve dynamic monitoring, rapid discovery, rapid identification and rapid response. 4. Use legal weapons to intensify the crackdown on illegal elements. If this intensity is not increased, it will be difficult to control the generation of rumors at the source; 5. Encourage enterprises to take the main responsibility of controlling rumors. While strengthening self-discipline and improving the credibility of the industry, enterprises should make a well-founded and powerful counterattack against rumors.
I think this is the case. The rumor management is to dispel rumors in a timely manner, but also to intensify the crackdown. Since the beginning of this year, our relevant ministries and commissions have also actively taken measures to join forces. Since the beginning of this year, the public security organs have stepped up their efforts to crack down on rumors. For example, the plastic laver rumor we just mentioned has arrested 18 people who have made and spread rumors, and the public security organs have given administrative punishments such as detention and fines to 13 people according to law. People feel more and more that the strength of dispelling rumors is growing, the speed of dispelling rumors is getting faster and faster, and the intensity of the crackdown is getting stronger and stronger. Therefore, we sincerely hope that in the initial stage of rumors, the public must remain rational, do not make rumors, do not believe in rumors, and do not spread rumors, so that rumors have no soil to spread.
Moderator: Food rumors have been repeatedly banned. Do you think it is because our illegal cost is too low, Director Zhong?
Kai Zhong: I think this may be a very important factor. It is of course the government’s responsibility to crack down on rumors. As a social organization, in fact, we mainly give full play to our independence and flexibility, and at the same time strengthen cooperation with the government and industries from a scientific perspective. We can speak out as early as possible to reduce the spread space of rumors. At the same time, in my opinion, as long as the government intensifies the crackdown on this kind of rumor, it will have a certain deterrent effect on them, and the source of this rumor will be reduced, and eventually its spread will be reduced. I think it should be the duty of everyone and every law-abiding citizen not to spread rumors, and I hope to increase daily science popularization and improve scientific literacy. Because he sent the letter because he thought it was true, not because he knew it was a rumor, few people saw it and spread it. He really believed it, so we really need to increase the popular science and publicity and education for the public at ordinary times, so that everyone can identify some rumors to a certain extent and actively reject some rumors.
Moderator: The rumor is moving, and the rumor is broken. Once the rumors of food safety are publicly spread, it will inevitably cause consumers anxiety of "this can’t eat that dare not eat". Some business executives have also said that rumors are the main reason for the decline in corporate efficiency. What do you think enterprises can do in the face of rumors?
Zhang Yipeng: I want to emphasize once again that enterprises, as the main body of our market, actually have to take responsibility. On the one hand, I think enterprises should first do their own quality well. As far as Yili Group is concerned, in fact, we have taken quality as a creed of our own enterprises. Mr. Pan Gang, the chairman of the board, has put forward the corporate creed that Yili is quality, which is above our corporate culture. In fact, this highly shows our pursuit of quality. Specifically, in fact, in recent years, we have taken some measures in quality control. On the one hand, we have put forward a "three-all" measure, a quality management system, which is a "three-all" system in which all staff pay attention to quality, all-round quality and quality in the whole process. In addition, we have three levels, from the group to the business department to the production enterprise, all of which have quality-related responsibilities and related management systems. On the other hand, I think there are three lines. One line is the enterprise standard of products, which is a basic line. In addition, we have also formulated our own control line, which is 50% higher than the national standard. At the same time, an early warning line has been set above such a starting line of our enterprise line. This early warning line is 20% higher than the starting line, which is three levels and three lines to control our quality and realize the goal of pursuing quality. In addition, I would like to say that in order to convince the public and consumers not to believe food rumors by mistake, what the former director and experts said is actually very reasonable.From the enterprise’s point of view, I think it is necessary to let consumers know the process of quality control of our products and the process of product production. In recent years, Yili has also done a lot of practice in this regard. We have carried out industrial tourism to let more consumers come to our factory, personally feel what the whole process of our products is from milk collection to production to distribution to consumers’ tables, and understand what tests and tests we have done in quality control. In fact, this will make more consumers.
On the other hand, in order to let more consumers participate in this process, we also use some Internet thinking and some Internet technical means, including the current AR and VR. This means that more consumers don’t have to walk into the factory, but we can understand the control of the whole process through these technical means. Therefore, I think this can also let consumers know what kind of food is the healthiest and what kind of food is the safest, so that they can understand food safety more rationally. In this case, I think with this knowledge, I will avoid believing rumors by mistake.
Moderator: Do you have any good suggestions for enterprises when facing rumors?
Kai Zhong: Actually, I think it’s possible, and then General Zhang’s words may be two points. The first point is that we also hope that some institutions like us can do scientific communication. We also hope that enterprises can come up with more resources to do consumer education with us, so that our consumers can better understand our food and our food industry. Don’t think that China on the tip of the tongue is good food. In fact, the progress of our food industry and food technology is the best guarantee for our food safety.
On the other hand, I think that when food enterprises do product marketing, they should control their own marketing impulse, and don’t belittle other people’s products just to say that their products are good. For example, if some sell organic products, they should say that other people’s pesticide residues and antibiotics are exaggerated. I think this is wrong. Light up your life and don’t blow out other people’s candles.
Moderator: Director Gong, do you have any good suggestions?
Gong Jianping: I think enterprises, as direct victims of food rumors, should take the initiative to take the main responsibility of controlling rumors. In addition, enterprises should take the initiative to carry out popular science propaganda and strengthen preventive measures against common sense, common and potential rumor risks. The government will also guide the chain-store enterprises across the country, organize the chain-store supermarkets and catering service units across the country to carry out long-term public welfare popularization of fireflies, and analyze the popular science and rumors in real time by using the communication channels closest to consumers, such as the labels on shelves and the paper pads on dinner plates, so that the government’s propaganda can be combined with the government’s management and enterprise’s propaganda.
Moderator: In order to reduce the panic caused by food rumors to the public and improve the public’s ability to distinguish rumors, this is a well-known coping strategy, but the key is how to make everyone believe in rumors, how to popularize science, and what kind of popular science method can be more efficient? Director Zhong, as an expert in the field of food safety science popularization, you must have a unique opinion on how to popularize science efficiently. We’d like to hear your opinion.
Kai Zhong: Actually, I am a lazy person. I just write my own popular science, but I know how to make the sound of science spread further with the help of other forces. No matter you are an expert or a scholar, the popular science you write or the popular science products you make can only be adapted to a small number of people forever. Any popular science product is only suitable for a small group of people, so what is more important? That is, as professionals, we should serve the media more and have such a mentality, that is to say, I am providing my popular science products to the media and let the media use their own experience and channels to process and spread them. I think this is the most important point in doing science popularization, not that my science popularization is the best. You can’t say that you have to listen to me. I think that will make science popularization bad. Everyone should invest in it. More importantly, let the media get a good source and spread it to the media audience, because the media audience is all over the country.
Moderator: What kind of popular science do you think is the most efficient?
Gong Jianping: I think popular science itself is easy to understand, which makes the public easy to see and listen to and very close to their own lives. I think such popular science people are the most acceptable and grounded. Therefore, I think Mr. Zhang just said that they will carry out every link of their product quality from the source and tell the public that my quality is safe and reliable. In fact, I think that if enterprises can do a good job in popularizing science in this way, I think the public will work with the government to do this work well.
Moderator: What else can you do for the enterprise, Mr. Zhang, in how to keep people from spreading rumors and not believing in rumors?
Zhang Yipeng: I think that apart from what I mentioned earlier, we have personally felt some of our measures in quality control. In fact, we have also incorporated some common sense of drinking milk in the whole product marketing, including terminal sales. We have also done a series of related activities, including promoting a healthy lifestyle, and these activities have always been tied to our marketing activities. At the same time, we have done some collaboration and cooperation with the Nutrition Society of China, such as the release of the White Paper on Big Data on Dairy Consumption in China, and we are doing these things jointly. In fact, I want to do some research in this field from the perspective of nutrition experts and nutrition majors, so that consumers can have some professional support and do a lot of work. In some special foods, such as infant formula milk powder, we have also done a lot of professional guidance. In fact, I think this is positive for consumers and for everyone to rationally understand food safety and health. In fact, if you know these things and answer the topic we talked about just now, you can correctly understand which are rumors and which are not rumors.
Moderator: Thank you for sharing so many wonderful views with us. Finally, we ask all the guests to express their expectations and prospects for China’s food industry in one sentence.
Gong Jianping: I think the food industry needs a prosperous cyberspace, but it must be safe. So finally, sincerely.
Gong Jianping: The food industry needs a prosperous cyberspace, but it must be safe. Finally, I sincerely hope that everyone can eat richer, healthier and safer food. Thank you!
Zhang Yipeng: I will quote the dream of "Let the world share health" from the words of Chairman Pan Gang at this summer’s Davos Forum.
Kai Zhong: I think maybe I hope that enterprises can develop more delicious, nutritious and healthy food for consumers. I think this is the most important social responsibility of enterprises.
Moderator: Thank you again for sharing your views and opinions with us, and thank you for watching. Goodbye.
