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Apple Attack Backfires for State Broadcaster
- AFP/Getty Images
The post, published Friday night on a Sina Weibo account registered to Taiwanese-American actor Peter Ho, came shortly after CCTV aired a World Consumer Rights Day broadcast accusing Apple of being biased against Chinese consumers in its warranty and customer service policies.
“#315isLive# Wow, Apple has so many tricks in its after-sales services. As an Apple fan, I’m hurt. You think this would be acceptable to Steve Jobs? Or to those young people who sold their kidneys [to buy iPads]? It’s really true that big chains treat customers poorly,” the post said, ending with a strange coda: “Post around 8:20.”
Weibo users immediately begun to speculate about the meaning of that last sentence, with some noting that an odd flood of negative posts about Apple appearing on the site after 8:20pm. Speculation soon spread that Mr. Ho had been supplied with the text by CCTV as part of coordinated campaign to smear the Cupertino, Calif. electronics maker online.
Mr. Ho eventually deleted the post, then posted two more messages saying he had not been responsible for the original post and that he suspected his account had been hacked. CCTV did not respond to requests for comment Monday. A spokesman for Weibo said he was not familiar with the matter.
The actor’s denial did nothing to stem a viral outpouring of reactions, many of them published under a #PostAround8:20 hashtag (since disabled). One microblogger went so far as to change her screen name to “Post Around 8:20.”
“Would the all-powerful CCTV please tell us which brands haven’t discriminated against the people of this Heavenly Kingdom? Post around 8:20,” one microblogger wrote in a typically sarcastic response.
- Sina Weibo
- A screenshot shows the verified Sina Weibo account of Taiwanese-American actor Peter Ho.
While there is no evidence to suggest Mr. Ho or anyone else was paid to post messages in support of CCTV’s allegations, the reaction on Weibo points to rising mistrust of the country’s state-run media outlets among Chinese Internet users, who have increasing access to alternate sources of information via social media.
News gathering in China, where censorship is a norm and freedom of the press is limited at best, is frequently mired in corruption. Stories are often driven by financial incentives or government directives. CCTV has been particularly aggressive in its annual Consumer Rights Day reports, including last year when it slammed McDonald’s Corp. with damaging allegations the fast food giant sold food that servers had dropped on the floor.
Experts say that the hyperbolic reports have given viewers the sense that the broadcaster has an agenda.
“The credibility for CCTV is hitting a bad point,” said Qiao Mu, director of the Center for International Communication Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, adding that some believe the government sway has gone overboard in coloring CCTV’s coverage.
CCTV didn’t just target Apple in its Consumer Rights Day broadcast. Between song-and-dance routines dedicated to consumer power — including one song sung to tune of the rock band Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” – the broadcaster also accused Germany’s Volkswagen VOW3.XE -0.66% of selling cars in China with substandard direct-shift gearbox systems, causing acceleration problems and car accidents for an unspecified number of consumers.
A spokeswoman for Apple said, “Our team is always striving to exceed our customers’ expectations, and we take any customer concerns very seriously.”
Volkswagen plans to fix problematic gears for customers in China, a spokesman said, adding, “We will spare no effort to make improvement in the future.”
– Laurie Burkitt and Josh Chin
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