Original link: https://www.williamlong.info/archives/7204.html
According to the news on June 21, Huang Yuanpu, the founder of Yiou.com, issued a report letter in which he reported Zhou Yuan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, founder and CEO of Zhihu, in his real name, maliciously provoking employee groups and business owners to oppose, seriously damaging the domestic business environment. Huang Yuanpu said that he implores the relevant departments to intervene and investigate the situation I said; I am willing to assist in the investigation and research and provide necessary materials and evidence for the relevant departments.
The following is the full text of the open letter:
Huang Yuanpu: Real-name report against Zhou Yuan, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, founder and CEO of Zhihu, maliciously inciting employee groups and business owners to confront each other, seriously damaging the domestic business environment
Dear leaders of relevant departments, my name is Huang Yuanpu. As the main founder, I established a small company called “Yiou” and “Beijing Yiou Wangmeng Technology Co., Ltd.”. My hometown is Shaoyang, Hunan, and my registered residence is in Changning District, Shanghai. The certificate number is 43052719xx10xx42xx, and the contact information is: 15810157304. Today, I report in my real name that Zhou Yuan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the founder and CEO of Zhihu (Beijing Zhizhe Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd., referred to as “Zhihu”), has maliciously provoked employee groups and companies through the Zhihu platform he created and unreasonable mechanisms. The main groups are opposed and seriously damaged the domestic business environment.
The following is my statement and I am responsible for what I say;
On the morning of June 20, 2023, after hearing an entrepreneur friend complain about being anonymously slandered on the Zhihu platform, I also searched for my name “Huang Yuanpu” on Zhihu. Found a “question” (currently Zhihu has been deleted): Will Yiou Huang Yuanpu run away with money?
This question was asked anonymously by an anonymous user of Zhihu. But in fact, Yiou is a think tank for the science and technology innovation industry. Its business model is mainly to provide research, consulting, branding and other services to technology companies. The manner in which the service is provided upon payment.
This question and description is very malicious, and it makes a malicious comparison between myself and the person in charge of a company in a different industry. This question, before I found it, should have existed for a while (Zhihu’s “question” does not display the question time). Before I even found out about this question, it had already done damage to my personal reputation, corporate brand and talent acquisition.
This is not the first time I have encountered such anonymous questions and answers on Zhihu. On Zhihu, there was a question “How to evaluate Huang Yuanpu”. , In 2022, there were false answers such as “Huang Yuanpu was removed from the CEO position by shareholders”; in another anonymous question on Zhihu, there was “Huang Yuanpu spent money to buy the Shanghai Youth May 4th Medal… Although I did not listen to what Huang Yuanpu said I have spoken English, but it is said that my English is very poor, and I paid for the business school of New York University” such a slanderous reply.
Regarding defamation of personal reputation, Zhihu’s official rules and answers are: “Zhihu has a complete community governance mechanism, and we oppose fabricating false information and maliciously defaming others. Users are welcome to give us feedback through the reporting channel, and the platform will issue the first Check and deal with it in a short time.”
The Civil Code stipulates that an individual’s right to reputation is protected. If there are insulting and defamatory remarks on the platform, individuals should report to the platform and delete these remarks. If further rights protection is required, they can sue the platform and then apply to the court for an investigation order. The platform discloses the identity of anonymous users.
The above norms can protect personal reputation to a certain extent, but whether it is time cost or energy cost, the cost of defending the rights of the parties who are anonymously defamed is very high. Zhihu is currently undergoing many lawsuits, most of which are related to personal reputation being damaged by Zhihu. Even if the rights protection is successful, the personal reputation damage of the litigant cannot be effectively compensated. While a lot of social resources are wasted, the Zhihu platform will be affected very little.
Directed anonymous questions, such as “How to evaluate the founder of a certain company”, “Is the CEO of a certain company a liar?”, “Will the president of a certain company run away with money?” will generally attract malicious people to People with other attitudes generally have no motivation to answer. The result is that most of the business owners on Zhihu are anonymous malicious questions, and most of the answers are anonymous malicious questions.
The 2023 “Qinglang” series of special actions led by the State Internet Information Office clearly stated that “promoting the formation of a good network ecology” as the work goal, proposed to standardize the order of network communication in key traffic links, optimize the business network environment, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises. Rectify Internet hostility and other issues. In addition, according to the “Opinions on Further Consolidating the Main Responsibilities of Website Platform Information and Content Management” released in September 2021, Zhihu is promoting the formation of a malicious network ecology and has failed to fulfill its basic main responsibility.
After I made public criticism, Zhihu platform has taken the initiative to delete most of my personal false information on its platform. However, Zhihu’s malicious mechanism has not been adjusted, and it is still playing a malicious role. Knowing the current mechanism, the threshold for posting malicious anonymous questions and anonymous answers is too low, there is no qualified review in advance, and the matter is only deleted afterwards. Zhihu needs to adjust its mechanism for posting questions and answers, and increase the threshold and cost of spreading rumors, such as restricting anonymous questions and answers, and labeling information that is proven to be rumors.
Is Zhihu’s anonymous questioning and anonymous answering mechanism designed to protect people’s freedom of speech? Obviously not. After being defamed, business owners often need to provide various certificates, which is very costly; many companies often need to spend money (recorded as “marketing fees”) to delete defamatory information. I have surveyed dozens of business owners, almost all of them have negative comments on Zhihu, and nearly half of them have to spend money to settle things. As a listed company, Zhihu’s financial report for the first quarter of 2023 shows that its marketing service revenue is 392 million yuan.
Business owners are their own people and a member of the people. They are a positive force in social construction and should be treated fairly and reasonably. The main tone of the group of business owners depicted on Zhihu is negative, which is inconsistent with the facts. This has seriously affected the normal production and work of the company, and objectively provoked the relationship between the majority of employees and business owners.
Adjust the mechanism of Zhihu. Only Zhou Yuan, the founder and CEO, can promote such a decision; as a well-known entrepreneur and elected as a member of the Social and Legal Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, he should have the empathy of entrepreneurs , Better understand the main responsibility of the platform. Unfortunately, Zhihu is still a big platform full of rumors.
Zhihu also has its own difficulties. As a company that has obtained multiple rounds of VC financing and is currently listed in the United States and Hong Kong, it has greater performance pressure. Its business model is based on the number of users and user activity. Raising the threshold for posting questions and answers, although it can effectively reduce rumors, is not conducive to its development of users and maintenance of user activity, thereby affecting its commercial income.
I implore the relevant departments to intervene and investigate the situation I mentioned above; I am willing to assist the investigation and research and provide necessary materials and evidence for the relevant departments.
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