latest progress! If he knows his mistakes, he will correct them. Xiaocai accepts the rectification suggestion of the Consumers Association and immediately removes the offending APP from the shelves.
On August 18, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province “Three Consumers Associations” and Little Talent Company held a “Little Talent T1 Children’s Tablet Computer Problem Rectification Communication Meeting”. The Consumers Associations of the three places suggested that the Little Talent Company should publish a notice, take radical measures to plug the loopholes in use, stop selling and operating related tablet computers, suspend related publicity, and establish a direct channel for complaints with the Consumers Association. For the rectification suggestions put forward by the three consumer associations, the representative of Xiaocai Company promised to accept all of them on the spot.
Previously, some consumers purchased the Little Genius T1 children’s tablet, and searched and downloaded many games and advertisements containing blood, violence and crimes in the app store, which once caused heated discussions.
Ads similar to Xiaocai’s tablet are frequently seen in other learning apps. During the summer vacation, the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter downloaded and experienced a variety of related products, and found that individual institutions, in order to attract users and traffic, or increase cash flow, played a critical role in the operation strategy, and frequently pushed adult marriage and love ads, pop-up ads, and various types of advertisements. Online games, and frequent induced consumption…
The national level has attached great importance to the issue of minors’ Internet access. On June 1, 2021, the newly revised “Law on the Protection of Minors” was officially implemented, and a special chapter on network protection was added.
But “laws alone are not enough”. Researchers said that the existence of individual chaos has a certain relationship with whether the relevant laws are strictly enforced, and also has a certain relationship with the relatively short period of time that the law has been implemented. To better protect minors, it is inseparable from the joint efforts of schools, governments, parents, and network product providers.
【test】
Learn the other side of APP：entrainment ad、induce consumption
Recently, the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter downloaded and experienced a variety of related products and discovered the other side of learning apps.
Take an app “I want to be a student master” for primary and middle school students as an example. During the browsing process, various advertisements will continue to pop up at the bottom of the page. In addition to some community and shopping apps, the reporter also saw some adult marriages. Advertising for dating, such as “Love Chat APP” and “Blind Date Group in the same city in Beijing”.
The APP also has a[Circle of Moments]section, where students can freely express their mood and “talk”. However, the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter noticed that many young students were busy openly “finding friends” inside. “I’m looking for a partner, female, 14 is very beautiful.” This was a post posted by a girl who had just graduated from elementary school earlier. Someone else claimed to be looking for a friend and left his QQ number directly.
In addition to this kind of friendship content is relatively common, there is also the phenomenon of individual students posting foul language or swearing, which has caused other students to follow, watch, and boo, and scold each other for “fighting” in the comment area.
Screenshot of part of the “I want to be a scholar” APP[Circle of Friends]section.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter noticed that this learning APP has multiple built-in sections, including English-Chinese dictionary, learning materials, extracurricular reading, circle of friends, discussion groups, etc. Its application rating is “7 years old or older”. The developer is Chengdu Baby World Technology Co., Ltd.
In addition to the above-mentioned APP, there are also learning APPs full of inducement advertisements. Taking an APP called “Junior High School History” as an example, a reporter from the Beijing News Shell Finance and Economics found that, in the APP, if you click on the pages at will, an advertisement pop-up window will pop up at the top or bottom of the screen, and users scroll up and down to browse. The page content is always present during the process. The content of advertisements includes online games, casual games, cutout software, car advertisements, and special effects software of “one-click quick online celebrity”. Some advertisements recommend “click to play, no need to download”, the reporter tried to click to directly enter the game login interface, and when the reporter exited the game, the system recommended more popular games.
Screenshots of some recommended advertisements in the “Junior High School History” APP.
There are also some learning apps that make watching advertisements a compulsory option for students to obtain corresponding learning rights.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter downloaded a learning app called “Focus on Self-study Room”. After entering, he followed the system prompt to select “Want to study for 60 minutes”, and was told that “the self-study coupons for this account have been used up and need to You can use it for free only after watching an advertisement.” You must watch the advertisement several times before you can start self-study. When the reporter tried it for the last time, the app reminded to buy a student-exclusive annual card of 5.8 yuan, or a super member of 30 yuan/month. The reporter paid 5.8 yuan to open an exclusive annual card and successfully entered the study room. When trying to add a background sound to the study room, the system reminded him again that he needed to watch an advertisement.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter noticed that the downloads of the above-mentioned three apps “I want to be a scholar”, “Junior high school history” and “Focus on study room” in the Android application market were 1.39 million, 160,000 and 180,000 respectively.
【analyze】
Small company “suicide” realization？The target group is not the core user
“These are all problems that existed a long time ago. Relevant state departments have also managed many platforms. Large platforms have no such phenomenon now, and small platforms may not be able to keep up with the supervision. In addition, they are busy with double reduction recently. Zhang Feng, a senior operator who has worked in several leading companies in the K12 industry, said that this type of information is of no benefit to users, the platform, the industry, and the country.
“Big platforms will only delete this kind of content, even titles, and cannot be used as a means of operation.” He explained that those who have tried social networking have basically encountered such problems, and the supervision cost is too high, so they simply cut off the social function. . Previously, his team also planned to create a learning community/forum, setting up several operators to maintain topics and increase user stickiness, so as to mobilize the enthusiasm of students to discuss learning problems. As a result, the content of non-learning problems is much larger than the content of learning problems. During the half year of operation, it was controlled several times. “The state is very close to the big platforms, and peers will report each other. The most important thing is that they can’t control themselves, and the cost is too high.” Come, this operating model is falsified, so most institutions basically stopped doing it later.
Regarding the “ubiquitous” pop-up advertisements on other learning apps, Wu Lin, a senior advertising person in the industry, explained to the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that the professional name of such pop-up advertisements in the industry is information flow advertisements. , is a form of APP for monetization, generally making money according to the number of downloads or clicks, “An APP will spend a lot of budget from research and development to listing, and behind the APP is traffic, such information flow advertising is the channel for APP realization one.”
However, Li Bo, a senior practitioner in the education industry, said that educational institutions generally do not sell their own APP traffic to third-party advertisements, “because if the company itself diverts and digests to sell some courses, the profit will be greater.”
Regarding the marriage and love advertisements appearing in the above-mentioned APPs, Li Bo analyzed that the user audience of the marriage and love APPs does not match the group of primary and secondary school students. Generally, the operators of such educational institutions will not accept such advertisements. “I think that apps with more pop-up ads are likely to have no other way to monetize, and there is a certain ‘suicide’ monetization situation. Because students who can pay attention to games/marriage and love are not the core users of monetization, They will not buy courses. Many students who buy courses are students who have some sense of self-learning, or are strictly controlled by their parents. The learning software used by these students is also used by most parents. After parents find out, they will definitely Will report / prohibit children from using, etc.” Li Bo said.
In Wang Lin’s observation, most of the APPs will have information flow advertisements, but she also said that most of the learning APPs are mainly realized by selling courses. “For example, the head already has a big brand voice, and it does not rely on advertising to make a living. Regarding selling traffic, let’s look at the ideas and strategies of each company.”
【crack】
Internet access for minorsandcyber risk issues，There is already a law
Hao Panpan, a researcher at the Beijing Educational Law Research Base, told Shell Finance that according to relevant research, among juveniles who committed crimes in a certain province, nearly 50% of juvenile offenders are dependent on the Internet, and 60% of juvenile offenders are subject to The influence of bad information such as Internet and mobile phones.
Behind the repeated prohibitions of learning APPs, Hao Panpan said, “If you are addicted to the Internet, minors may change the bad information and behaviors they encounter online to offline and imitate them. Secondly, because of such The stimulation generated by bad information is stronger, and it is easy for underage students to lose interest in learning and normal interpersonal communication, gradually abandoning or even withdrawing from their studies. In addition, the marriage, love and dating section pushed in online products for minors is also prone to criminals. The implementation of illegal acts provides an opportunity, thereby posing a major threat to the personal safety and physical and mental health of minors.”
“In fact, the national level has attached great importance to the problem of minors’ Internet access, and has already begun to solve such problems.” Hao Panpan told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that on June 1, 2021, the newly revised “Unknown” The Adult Protection Law was officially implemented, and a special chapter on network protection was added. Article 74 of this chapter stipulates that online product and service providers shall not provide minors with products and services that induce their addiction. Online game, online live broadcast, online audio and video, online social networking and other network service providers shall set corresponding time management, rights management, consumption management and other functions for minors to use their services. Online education network products and services targeting minors shall not insert links to online games, and shall not push advertisements and other information unrelated to teaching.
Hao Panpan believes, “This means that the protection of minors on the Internet has taken an important step in legislation. Relevant departments have realized that in the era of online information and mobile Internet, minors’ access to the Internet and the network they face. Risk. We now have the law in place for that.”
However, “law alone is not enough”, Hao Panpan said, law alone is not enough to solve these problems automatically. The existence of individual chaos has a certain relationship with the strict implementation of relevant laws, and it is also related to the relatively short time for the implementation of laws. There is a certain relationship. In his view, the above-mentioned chaos mainly points to the producer of the product or the provider of the software service. “For online products used by minors, the production provider should set up a special service model for minors to meet these management requirements. The content and services provided should also block the parts that are not conducive to the healthy growth and development of minors. The push should be content that is acceptable to their age group and helpful to their growth.”
“To better protect minors, it is inseparable from the joint efforts of schools, governments, parents, network product providers and other parties.” Hao Panpan concluded that in addition to network product providers and parents, there must be some In addition to this, schools should do a good job of corresponding educational work to improve the Internet literacy of minors, and enhance the awareness and ability of minors to use the Internet in a scientific, civilized, safe and rational manner. On the other hand, there is also a lot of work to be done by departments such as Internet information, public security, and industry and commerce administration. For example, new policies and new measures are constantly being introduced to define the types and criteria of online information that may affect the physical and mental health and growth of minors. From the source Governance.
(At the request of the interviewee, Li Bo, Zhang Feng, and Wu Lin are all pseudonyms in the text)
Revelations/Communication Reporter Email: [email protected]
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Sun Wenxuan edited Chen Li to proofread Liu BaoqingReturn to Sohu, see more
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