On March 31, one of famous WeChat accounts called “Australia Mirror” in Australia published an article titled ‘Disclosure on The Largest Scandal of Starbucks, Junk Information from Global Media Floods The Screen!’ , claiming Starbucks coffee can cause cancer. This article was spread rapidly within a short time and was shared in the circle of friends, bringing millions of view clicks for “Australia Mirror”, and even ranked at top one on the microblog Hot Search Ranking List.
On April 1, the official WeChat of People’s Daily published an article with the title of Compared with Cancer-Causing of Starbucks Coffee, the Chinese Media Making Rumors in Overseas is More Terrible, and criticized the rumor-making behavior of “Australia Mirror”. Meanwhile, many other authoritative media in China such as Global Times and Dingxiang Doctor also denounced this kind of articles. Unquestionably, the WeChat account of “Australia Mirror” was closed at that time for attracting public attention by posting false news.
In the past year, over 10 articles of “Australia Mirror” had been confirmed to be rumors. So why does this platforms like to publish false information?
The reason that “Australia Mirror” has rapidly become to be the account with a large number of followers is that readers like their articles including false news ones. False information actually caters to some people and satisfied their demand. These kind of false information have much bias and easily to attract audiences’ eye. Therefore, it spreads so widely and fatly. But in the long run, such kind of information transmission will cause negative social influence, such as the event of Starbucks Coffee.
Ruizhi Zhao 