Don't let the rumors of injuring farmers become a "decapitation case"

An irresponsible rumor is likely to undo the hard work of farmers for more than half a year, and even lead to the instant collapse of the agricultural industry that has been cultivated in a place for many years. How to deal with and eliminate the rumors that hurt farmers is a topic that needs to arouse the attention and discussion of the public.

Recently, some media combed through some rumors that hurt farmers in recent years, and found that many food safety rumors have been reported and spread by the relevant media, causing great harm to farmers and related agricultural industries. although relevant government departments and testing agencies have verified and refuted the rumors, the media's efforts in reporting and clarification are obviously not as strong as when they are exposed, resulting in the adverse impact on farmers and related agricultural industries difficult to completely eliminate.

The embarrassing reality that the rumors of injuring farmers became a "decapitated case" after being "reported" by the media does exist, but some authoritative media soon clarified some rumors. For example, after the rumor that "strawberry agricultural residues cause cancer" appeared at the end of April this year, this newspaper reacted quickly and published on May 1 that "strawberry agricultural residues cause cancer beyond the standard". Is it true? "one article refutes the rumor; People's Daily's" verification "column then published an investigation report on" eating strawberries causing cancer "on May 2, which also refuted the rumor. Unfortunately, the clarifications of these media failed to achieve a "great reversal" of public opinion, and farmers and the national strawberry industry were still hit hard.

Why rumors hurt farmers repeatedly? in fact, the real crux of the problem is not that the media did not investigate and clarify the rumors, but that even if they were clarified, it was difficult to attract widespread social attention. To a certain extent, this also reflects the problem that it is difficult to refute rumors that hurt farmers. First of all, most of the time, the media that refutes rumors are not the first media to "expose the problem", and the media that are the first to "expose" do not clarify. In the eyes of some consumers, at least this issue is "controversial", and they will have doubts about refuting rumors; secondly, from the perspective of "first cause effect", people are more willing to believe the information they have come into contact with for the first time, and the spreading power of "refuting rumors" will be greatly reduced. In addition, there are some irresponsible network, social media, more willing to spread eye-catching rumors rather than fair and rational information to refute rumors, objectively leading to the information asymmetry of many consumers.

However, this is not a reason for us not to deal with rumors that hurt farmers, because an irresponsible rumor is likely to make farmers' hard work for more than half a year come to naught, and even lead to the instant collapse of the agricultural industry that has been cultivated for many years in a place. How to deal with and eliminate the rumors that hurt farmers is a topic that needs to arouse the attention and discussion of the public.

We might as well first sort out the three common types of rumors that have emerged in recent years. The first is baseless and irresponsible "online rumors", most of which have the motivation to use the public topic of food safety to engage in online hype and attract the attention of the audience; the second is specious "distorted and exaggerated rumors", which distorts harmless plant diseases into diseases harmful to human beings with intentional or unintentional conceptual transformation, resulting in people's rejection of food. The third is a more complicated "authoritative rumor". Although it has gone through some procedures and tests, it leads to misinformation due to the unscientific, unrigorous, and non-universal representativeness of the detection methods. For example, the "cancer caused by strawberry pesticide residues" that appeared in April this year is this type.

How to reduce the rumors that hurt farmers more effectively, while refuting the rumors rationally and impartially, we should also focus on the two links of "beforehand" and "afterwards". "beforehand" is to take precautions and remove the environmental soil that harms farmers and fosters rumors. For the first kind of groundless rumors of online speculation, under the condition of the network real-name system, it is no longer a problem to charge them technically, so it is necessary to step up the crackdown so that speculators are in awe of the online speech. For that kind of distorted and exaggerated rumors, it is necessary for local governments to disclose information timely and accurately, and through various forms of communication, especially by making good use of mobile terminals and social media, to spread the voice of professional authority to consumers and dispel the suspicion of the outside world in time. As for the rumors caused by the lack of rigor of the mass media, the media must pay attention to strengthening their professionalism and self-discipline, and they must seek scientific verification and speak with rigor on the safety of agricultural products.

The "afterwards" link is to strictly investigate the responsibility of the rumor mongers in order to play a deterrent role. Recently, Wanda Group and Alibaba Group sued related online speculation rumors to us. Their lawsuits and claims can, to a large extent, form a great warning and deterrence to rumor speculators. However, for rumor mongers who have brought tens of millions or hundreds of millions of yuan in losses to farmers and agriculture, we seldom see people sue them, and few people are sanctioned for this. This is mostly because farmers are in a weak position, unable to support themselves, and unable to safeguard their rights, so they need someone to speak for them, and the government, regulatory departments, and judicial departments need to crack down on rumor mongers, pursue responsibility in accordance with the law, and claim losses, so that rumor mongers do not dare to spread rumors and cannot create rumors.

In recent years, through the common efforts of relevant departments and producers, the level of food safety in China has been greatly improved. the complete disappearance of rumors that hurt farmers is inseparable from the reconstruction of consumers' confidence in the safety of agricultural products. In this sense, we should take a positive and open attitude to the food safety supervision of the public and the media, but in this process, we should also resolutely prevent any intentional or unintentional rumors from causing harm to farmers and agriculture. To cultivate rationality and crack down on rumors is also an indispensable part of the construction of food safety system.