"Every choice we make is a vote for the world we want."

Author|Lan Dong Business Yu Weilin

Rumors stop with wise men, but they may stop faster with legal means.

After reporting to the public security organ on October 16, after waiting for more than 40 days. On November 26, JD.com received an apology statement from SOHU Entertainment and a notification of penalties imposed by the public security organ on a few institutions and individuals. At this point, a series of public opinion controversies that began with the Yang Li endorsement incident have come to an end.

Behind the apology statement of a few hundred words is a rumor that Zhang Zetian has joined the so-called 'Illuminati' due to a brooch from the French fashion brand Schiaparelli. Now it seems absurd, but at the time, it was spread in various channels in a credible manner.

In addition, JD.com has been continuously hit by rumors such as 'JD Finance experiencing a run on the bank, products cannot be redeemed'; 'The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has sent a working group to JD.com'; 'JD.com has been infiltrated by the international mysterious organization ESG'; '90% of JD.com employees are female, and it has been controlled by extreme feminism' in the past period.

Private entrepreneurs always navigate through storms of public opinion, whether in China or abroad. But in recent months, entrepreneurs who are accustomed to silence have begun to fight back in their own way. Nongfu Spring's Zhong Shanshan slammed 'algorithm violence', Donglai Fat Donglai tactfully refused 'moral blackmail', and JD.com directly picked up legal weapons to cut through the tangled mess.

Behind the changing attitude of entrepreneurs is the change in the new communication context driven by algorithms. Out-of-context interpretations and unfounded fabrications hurt not only the emotions of entrepreneurs, but also the commercial value of enterprises and the vital interests of countless people.

Just like in May this year, Liu Qiangdong's internal speech leaked. In a 10-minute speech, 8 minutes were spent on salary increases and 2 minutes on hard work, but what was repeatedly interpreted by online platforms was only the censored 'If you don't want to work hard, you're not my brother'.

The internet has never been a lawless land. It's time to take responsibility for one's speech and face up to the value of Chinese enterprises and entrepreneurs.

Collective 'retrograde' of entrepreneurs

Public opinion is like a surging wave, lifting people into the air one second and slamming them onto the beach the next.

For example, before November this year, Donglai Fat Donglai, an offline supermarket business that has adhered to Xuchang, Henan, received unanimous praise and was hailed as the 'ceiling of the supermarket industry' and the 'dream company' of countless employees.

However, on November 20, along with a statement from its founder Yu Donglai that 'employees are not allowed to ask for a bride price', Donglai Fat Donglai was plunged into a wave of public opinion, with questions being raised about whether it had violated the boundary between the company and employees and whether it had a 'paternalistic' attitude.

According to Tencent News, within two days of the news breaking, at least 20 major media outlets descended to 'encircle and suppress' the issue, with countless self-media outlets also joining in; according to Plum Blossom Data's public opinion monitoring, as of November 24, the related incident appeared on the trending topics list 92 times, on 9 platforms, lasting for 173 hours.

Young people were unhappy, feeling that Yu Donglai's reach was too long, and were bound to denounce him both verbally and in writing.

Even if Donglai Fat Donglai's official response was merely an advance advocacy; even if such a requirement is completely legal and consistent with the goal of 'prohibiting the demand for property through marriage' stated in Article 1042 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China; even if Donglai Fat Donglai's corporate culture includes provisions for 'cultivating a sound personality' and 'making society better'; even if on November 23, Yu Donglai posted 11 consecutive updates, stating 'I'm sunny and relaxed!' and 'I prefer to move forward according to the goals I pursue in my heart', suspected to be a response to the controversy, the negative voices did not stop.

Coincidentally, another well-known entrepreneur who has been continuously trending this week is Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan.

If Yu Donglai's statements and responses are a manifestation of his adherence to and defense of his values, then Zhong Shanshan's 'slamming' is more like a clear-cut counterattack after repeated forbearance.

On November 19, when Zhong Shanshan attended an event in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, he publicly called on Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, to demand that Toutiao and Douyin delete harmful and defamatory remarks about him and to 'apologize to me and my family, it's been a long time'.

The incident began at the end of February this year when Zong Qinghou, the founder of Wahaha, passed away, and a spontaneous wave of condolences emerged online. However, this condolence enthusiasm evolved into a large-scale condemnation of Nongfu Spring, a competitor of Wahaha. On platforms such as Douyin, slanderous remarks about Zhong Shanshan abounded.

It takes just one mouth to spread rumors, but it takes a lot of legs to dispel them. Over the past eight months, Nongfu Spring has not only responded and clarified publicly but also released a long post on its official account summarizing and responding to 20 rumors and truths about Nongfu Spring and its founder Zhong Shanshan; it has also reported the case to the public security organs and filed a lawsuit with the people's court to pursue the legal responsibility of the relevant entities.

However, none of these actions spread as quickly or had as profound an impact as the rumors. During the controversy, Zhong Shanshan's mother passed away, dealing him a heavy blow.

Similar to Nongfu Spring and Donglai Fat Donglai, the siege faced by JD.com this time is even more absurd. Rumors such as 'JD.com has been infiltrated by the international mysterious organization ESG', 'ESG is a feminist organization', and '90% of JD.com employees are female and have been controlled by extreme feminism' expose the low level of awareness of the rumor mongers.

ESG is an acronym for 'Environment, Social, and Governance' and is a standard for assessing corporate sustainability. It has been a key benchmark used by global investors in recent years to measure the investment value of enterprises.

Regarding the 'S' social component, there are issues related to gender equality and the focus on equal opportunities for male and female employees, which have nothing to do with so-called extreme feminism.

As for the claim that 90% of JD.com employees are female, one only needs to delve into the calculation method to realize its absurdity.

The rumor mongers claimed: JD.com has a total of 620,000 employees, and in mid-2023, JD.com announced that it had around 420,000 frontline logistics employees, with a male-to-female ratio of 8:2 among frontline couriers. Therefore, JD.com's male logistics employees number 336,000, accounting for 54% of the total 620,000, while female employees account for 46% of the JD.com Group. Therefore, it is concluded that almost all other business units of JD.com, except for the logistics system, are staffed by women.

In fact, the data citing a '46% female ratio' comes from a 2023 JD.com Blackboard post on its official account about Women's Day, and this ratio does not include the frontline logistics system. Taking JD Health as an example, according to public information, in 2023, it had 1,792 female employees and 1,513 male employees, roughly equal, with 40% of senior executives being female.

They didn't even understand JD.com's organizational structure or the proportion of employees in the logistics system, so they can only be described as 'logical geniuses'.

Starting with Yang Li's endorsement, stirring up gender confrontation and inciting national sentiment to attack JD.com seems to form a system of its own, but in reality, it does not withstand scrutiny.

The bitter fruit of biased communication

People only believe what they want to believe, and groups are always swayed by emotions. In the new communication context, what the truth is often no longer matters.

Harold Innis, a Canadian economic historian and communication scholar, once said in his book 'The Bias of Communication', 'A medium, after prolonged use, may to some extent determine the character of the knowledge it disseminates.' 'It may be said that the strength of a new medium will lead to the emergence of a new civilization.'

In other words, in the reading era dominated by printed books, people spend more time judging and thinking, which means being more rational; while contemporary people use media such as mobile phones to receive fragmented information and thinking patterns, emotionalization and meme culture are inevitable.

The river of information flows slowly, leaving deep or shallow imprints like the Coriolis force. Some comments that can stimulate public emotions often influence the value stance of the entire comment section. Entrepreneurs are gradually realizing the importance of occupying the high ground of public opinion, but in the process of enlightenment, they have suffered huge losses in personal reputation and commercial value.

According to Nongfu Spring's mid-year results released in August 2024, in January and February before the public opinion incident, Nongfu Spring's bottled water sales revenue increased by 19% compared to the same period last year; however, in the first half of the year, the revenue of packaged drinking water products decreased by 18.3% compared to the same period last year. Industry insiders estimate that this public opinion controversy caused Nongfu Spring to lose more than 7 billion yuan in revenue.

Similarly, JD.com's public opinion crisis this time caused share price fluctuations, with the market value evaporating by nearly 50 billion yuan in just two weeks from the year's high in early October. During this period, it coincided with the annual most important promotional node for e-commerce platforms, Double 11, and the indirect revenue loss is incalculable.

Behind the collective 'retrograde' of entrepreneurs, there may be the guidance and layout of competitors or malicious smearing. But essentially, it is the underlying pain caused by the entertaining misinterpretation of business events in this era and the bitter fruit brought about by the misdirection of public sentiment. Today, how should we examine a company or an entrepreneur?

The 'covered up' value

When judging a company, should we look at the emotions and one-sided views on the public opinion field, or what the company has done over a period of time?

Zhang Lei, the founder of Hillhouse Capital, once said in his book 'Value', 'The only criterion for true investment is whether it creates real value, and whether this value is beneficial to the overall prosperity of society.'

Taking JD.com as an example, according to public information, as of now, JD.com has provided high-quality job opportunities for 620,000 people, providing 'five insurances and one housing fund' to more than 400,000 employees, including delivery men and customer service representatives.

In 2024, JD.com implemented its agricultural assistance strategy for the 10th year, launching a subsidy of 10 billion yuan for agriculture and investing 10 billion yuan over three years to subsidize agricultural products. Nowadays, a series of agricultural product brands such as 'Running Chicken', 'Overlord Crab', and 'Swimming Duck', which have become bestsellers on the JD.com platform, all come from JD.com's continuous deep cultivation of industrial belts, and JD.com has become an important channel for the sale of agricultural products from poor areas.

The internet has a memory. During the epidemic, JD.com was frequently trending due to its outstanding performance in supply guarantee actions. For example, JD.com once dispatched more than 5,000 couriers and sorters from all over the country to Shanghai in a tragic 'suicide-style one-way logistics' mission to solve the local manpower shortage and order backlog, as well as the food supply issue for tens of millions of people.

According to JD.com's official statistics, during the 80 days of supply guarantee in Shanghai, the cumulative anti-epidemic and supply guarantee expenses exceeded 2 billion yuan.

This company is beyond reproach in terms of social responsibility and social value. On October 12, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce released the 2024 Top 500 Chinese Private Enterprises list, and JD.com ranked first for three consecutive years based on its operating performance and continuous social contributions.

Every beneficial initiative of a bilateral internet platform will bring multiple value benefits. For consumers, it means high-quality products and services that are fast, convenient, and inexpensive; for merchants, it means greater purchasing traffic and more display opportunities; for farmers and manufacturers at the upstream end of the supply chain, it means valuable wealth creation opportunities.

From JD.com, we can draw a conclusion that the social value created by a company is closely related to its commercial value, and seeing through public opinion controversies by separating the true from the false is not only defending the reputation of entrepreneurs but also defending the survival rights of thousands of workers and participants in the industrial chain.

During this rumor controversy, the public security organs also paid close attention to the progress of the incident. On the morning of November 27, the Ministry of Public Security's news media promptly released JD.com's rumor refutation information and would not tolerate any rumors or smearing.

"Every choice we make is a vote for the world we want." This is a widely circulated saying. Through consumption choices, we determine which white-label brands will develop into branded ones and which branded ones will eventually fall from grace; by voicing our opinions on the internet, our speech is learned by AI, retained as big data, and provides criteria for judging good and evil in the future world.

What seems like a minor act of speech may be like a butterfly flapping its wings, stirring up a hurricane of public opinion. Whether it's JD.com, Nongfu Spring, Donglai Fat Donglai, or any other private enterprise, they all deserve our careful scrutiny, and we should refuse to be incited by emotions.