● With the rapid development of the Internet and short video platforms, the channels for the elderly to receive rumors and be deceived have increased, and many of them are convinced of the rumors on social media. The rumor articles of "shock body" and "title party" have become one of the contents that the elderly retweet more in social groups, and most of them are related to topics such as health and health

● Taking advantage of the online activity of the elderly to earn merchant advertising fees and platform traffic share is a common way to monetize traffic. The more people watch, the marketing number behind these short videos can get advertising fees through the "traffic main share". At the same time, these marketing accounts can also attract advertisers

● The survey results show that Internet fraud and online rumors pose an important threat to the online trust of middle-aged and elderly people. We should recognize the importance of "feeding back the Internet culture", call on young children to give necessary intervention and assistance in the process of their parents touching the Internet, and establish the concept that children are the "first responsible person" for the convenience of Internet use and the risk supervision of Internet use by the elderly

● Social platforms must pay attention to the optimization of health information acquisition paths, improve the accuracy of health information dissemination, optimize the communication effect, and meet the health information acquisition needs of the elderly group. At the same time, self-purification, rumor supervision and risk management and control should be strengthened to reduce the spread of rumors

□ Zhao Li, reporter of this newspaper

□ Intern Wan Peng

50 bags of lake salt! Looking at the lake salt that occupied an entire cabinet, Beijing citizen Xue Li sighed.

This is more than a month ago, she "snapped" back from e-commerce platforms at the strong request of her 65-year-old mother. "This is still the minimum amount my mother can accept after some games, and if I hadn't strongly opposed it, I would have bought it several times." Xue Li said that her mother saw a video in an elderly social group about the pollution of sea salt after the nuclear contaminated water was discharged into the sea, and heard that other group members were grabbing salt, so she kept urging her to stock up on salt. The video currently says "Cleared".

Similar stories have happened to many families. In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet and short video platforms, the channels for the elderly to receive rumors and be deceived have increased, and many of them are convinced of the rumors on social media.

A reporter from "Rule of Law Daily" recently investigated and interviewed and found that the rumor articles of "shock body" and "title party" have become one of the contents that the elderly retweet more in social groups, most of which are related to topics such as health preservation and health. These contents often do not stand up to scrutiny, but many elderly people believe it and frantically forward it. In addition to misleading the audience, the fraudulent links, malicious downloads, and advertising drainage involved in the article also need urgent attention.

Various rumors are rife on the Internet

Cognitive impairment in older adults

"At the beginning, when I saw that someone in the family social group forwarded an article calling on everyone to stock up on salt, I quickly explained to my mother that she was not taking it seriously. But when she saw the video later, she couldn't sit still anymore and called me four times in the morning, urging me to buy her salt quickly. Xue Li said that the day after she received 4 bags of lake salt, #Chaka Salt Lake has enough salt for the whole country to eat for 50 years#The topic was on the hot search.

Zhang Kai, a Beijing resident, told reporters that such rumors and articles can be seen almost every day in his family social group, among which the most forwarded is health information, such as what vegetables cannot be eaten together, what toxic ingredients are contained in certain foods, etc. In order to persuade his family not to believe these rumors, he even had conflicts with his parents.

According to the new media blue book "WeChat Public Account Rumor Dissemination Research Report", the number of rumors on seven categories is the largest, involving food safety, personal safety, disease-related and health preservation, anti-fraud, money, parent-child, etc. Among them, food safety and personal safety and disease-related topics accounted for the majority of the total rumors.

These rumors, especially about health and diseases, also affect the cognition of the elderly.

"My grandmother always says that eating this dish is good and that dish is not good, as long as the Internet says that eating any ingredients is good for the body, she firmly believes it." Zhang Kai said that every time he went to his grandmother's house to eat, he felt the fear of being dominated by false and rumored information in social groups: many elders at the dinner table were repeaters of the titles of online rumor articles, such as "eat more onions, eat one a day, the blood vessels are brushed very clean", "soaked fungus is easy to eat dead overnight", "more jealousy, lower blood pressure", "pork liver can't be eaten, all heavy metals".

Rumor headlines are sometimes "secretive." Beijing citizen Gao Hai sorted out 43 articles forwarded by his father in a week and found that the title of "shock body" abounds: "Drinking this before going to bed at night can actually drain all the toxic substances!" "The physical examination has killed countless people, do you still dare to have a physical examination?" 《Serious warning! WiFi can hurt children at home, and the consequences are unimaginable! 》......

The technology media "Understand Notes" once reported that a copywriter from a former marketing agency told that the videos and articles that triggered the enthusiastic forwarding of middle-aged and elderly groups were basically from the hands of the post-90s and post-95s, who met every day to discuss what middle-aged and elderly groups like to watch and how to integrate social hotspots into the content they like to watch. The content about family morality, husband and wife, parenting, and health care can basically move them quickly.

Specially create fake tweets

Diverting and monetizing for profiteering

"Technology is not good or evil, it all depends on the people who use it and what purpose they use it for. In terms of technology alone, it is already possible to generate rumor text into short videos. According to Internet industry entrepreneur Guo Kai (pseudonym), this technology has become mature, and it can also rely on big data analysis to cater to the algorithm recommendation mechanism of relevant short video platforms to regulate content, which means that future rumors may migrate to short video platforms on a large scale, and the elderly will be harvested "more conveniently".

Behind these articles, short videos, the scythe of the harvest has long been prepared. For example, using these inducing articles or videos to drive advertising is the purpose of the "shock body" headline. In July 2021, police shut down a company that had concocted a large number of headline party tweets during the pandemic. According to media reports, this is an online gang that specializes in making fake tweets of the "title party" to attract and monetize.

In this regard, Zhang Kai has a deep experience, his father shared the title "Everyone must know the common secret recipe for soaking feet" in the crowd a few days ago, and the money is not exchanged!" ", but click in to see that it is selling.

"These articles or videos sometimes lure older people into advertising pages and apps with misleading signs." According to a video link shared by Gao Hai, when the exit video clicked the "exit button", it entered the advertising page, which was extremely difficult to close, and even asked to download the App. "For the elderly, they don't understand so many operations, they will only click down as required."

According to Guo Kai, taking advantage of the online activity of the elderly to earn merchant advertising fees and platform traffic sharing is a common way to monetize traffic. The more people watch, the marketing number behind these short videos can get advertising fees through the "traffic main share". At the same time, these marketing accounts can also attract advertisers.

Selling courses and paying for low-end knowledge are also ways to monetize such short videos. According to media reports, a health article will be attached with a QR code to attract the elderly to the group with the gimmick of learning moxibustion courses for free, and the same team also has dozens of matrix numbers such as free face-to-face consultation, learning guasha, learning spleen and stomach conditioning, learning acupuncture points, learning cupping, learning shoulder and neck conditioning, and learning tuina, pushing and draining each other.

Because of loneliness, so forward

Break the silence and stir up the topic

Unknowingly, many respondents are talking about their elders' ability to distinguish rumors.

"My mother always says that she can identify rumors based on experience and experience, and she will never forward information that is considered to be rumors, but several articles such as "Don't choose these three kinds of hanging noodles in the supermarket, many people don't know, no wonder eat a mouthful of chemicals" shared by the circle of friends have been judged as rumors by the rumor debunking platform, and she is still convinced." Xue Li complained.

The reporter conducted online and offline interviews with 30 elderly people aged 65 to 70 who lived in the city, and found that 22 respondents were very confident in their perception and judgment of rumors, accounting for 73.3%. However, based on the observation of interviewees' family interviews and the information they have recently disseminated and shared, combined with the judgment of relevant information made by some effective rumor debunking platforms, it is found that there are many rumors about the elderly sharing and disseminating information.

In response to questions such as "how to distinguish rumors" and "how to determine that the information you spread is not a rumor", 17 respondents said that they could distinguish according to their own experience and experience, such as "I can judge by myself and use my brain to figure it out" and "I have lived for decades, I must still have the ability to discriminate"; Eleven respondents said that they had the corresponding personal qualities and were able to make judgments on information or restrict their own information dissemination behavior, such as "I have the ability to rationally analyze and judge" and "I will search the Internet to see if this is a rumor".

The 30 respondents generally believed that they did not spread rumors and were sufficiently discernible to "know at a glance whether they were rumors or not."

In addition, the reporter noticed through the survey that social participation is an important factor affecting the information cognition of the elderly. Sixteen respondents believe that people in their social circle attach great importance to and are careful about the sharing and dissemination of information, so they can trust the information they publish, and they can also forward and disseminate valuable information.

Most of the 30 respondents wanted to express their concern and inform friends and juniors of the "warnings" and "precautions" they had obtained. There are also many elderly people who said that after obtaining the health information they are interested in, they forward it to their children in the hope of breaking the silence and provoking communication topics and attracting their children's attention.

An interviewed elderly person told reporters: "The children are not around, and they can only see each other during the New Year." It is also quite difficult for them to make a living in big cities, and I heard them say that they have to work overtime until eight or nine o'clock every day, and they often travel for business, which is very hard. We parents can't help them with anything, we can only try not to cause them trouble. After a long time, the chat does not know what to ask, they are annoyed when they ask more, sometimes I see what methods or recipes to introduce health on the Internet, I send them to them, they will reply to me when they see it, and then ask about the latest situation. ”

In this regard, the survey of the digital generation gap and digital feedback research group of Shenzhen University shows that in addition to the perennial thinking pattern and life experience of the elderly, the response ability and media literacy of the massive information on the Internet are insufficient, and the emptiness and loneliness of the spiritual world win attention through forwarding and other behaviors, which is an important reason why the elderly like to spread online rumors and articles.

To safeguard the rights and interests of the elderly

Rumors are urgently addressed

Although the age-appropriate transformation of Internet applications is actively promoted, Internet ecological purification and online content governance are also deepening, the "Survey Report on Internet Use and Internet Literacy of Middle-aged and Elderly People" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") launched by the research group of Fudan University shows that the digital divide and online rumors are still the main factors that reduce the Internet experience of middle-aged and elderly people. The survey results show that Internet fraud and online rumors pose an important threat to the online trust of middle-aged and elderly people.

The "Report" also pointed out the importance of "Internet culture feeding", called on young children to give necessary intervention and assistance in the process of their parents touching the Internet, and established the concept that children are the "first responsible person" for middle-aged and elderly people to use the Internet convenience and Internet risk supervision.

"In order to safeguard the basic rights and interests of the elderly in the Internet field, rumor management cannot be delayed." Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management of Communication University of China, said that the elderly group overcame their own mind-set contact with the Internet, should have enjoyed digital dividends, and narrowed the distance with society through the Internet, but a large number of online rumors that came into view were not nutritious, using titles and gimmicks to win click attention and defraud the elderly into traffic. If the rumors are not debunked for the elderly group, the adverse effects of the rumors will spread. Even if rumors are debunked in time, it is a blow to the elderly and a drain on their enthusiasm for accessing the Internet.

In the opinion of the interviewed experts, the elderly have less demand for application software than young people, but they rely on one or two mainstream social software very high, so as an important way for the elderly group to obtain information, these two social platforms play a key role in whether elderly users can obtain real and high-quality information.

During the survey, many elderly people interviewed also complained that the health information on social platforms was mixed, and it was difficult to distinguish between authenticity and fake, which caused them certain trouble. In the future, can social platforms take into account the information acquisition needs and capabilities of the elderly, and launch a more targeted, more accurate information push, and stricter supervision of rumors for the elderly.

"Social platforms must pay attention to the optimization of health information acquisition paths, improve the accuracy of health information dissemination, optimize the communication effect, and meet the health information acquisition needs of the elderly group." Zheng Ning said that at the same time, self-purification, rumor supervision and risk control should be strengthened to reduce the spread of rumors.

Zheng Ning believes that whether it is health rumors or current affairs, safety and other rumors, it is a long-term and continuous task, and stopping the infringement of rumors can not only rely on "gatekeepers", but also need to establish a set of long-term mechanisms to refute rumors, relying on the maturity of big data and artificial intelligence technology, to continuously empower the establishment of a sound rumor monitoring system.

In the reporter's survey, most of the interviewed elderly people said that they would occasionally see rumor-refuting information on social platforms or TV programs, but these rumor-debunking information was fragmented, and there was no targeted information that they were interested in or confused about, and they hoped to have professional rumor-debunking platforms or programs to give guidance.

In this regard, some industry experts suggest that the current rumor debunking platform should be integrated, and the publicity and exposure of the platform should be enhanced to ensure the authority of the rumor, enhance the popularity, and timely and efficiently push the rumor debunking information to the elderly group. In the design of related platforms, it is also necessary to tend to be simplified and convenient, and the page production is clear and easy to find, so as not to reduce the enthusiasm of the elderly due to the difficulty of operation and confusing functions.

(Source: Rule of Law Daily)