APPENDIX: IMPORTANT NETWORK INCIDENTS FROM 2014 TO 2015 Yixuan Wang, Licheng Ying, Gegen Xiao, Jiahui Yan, Xiaoxu Li, Shuangting He, and Aosong Lin TMALL “DOUBLE ELEVEN” SALES NEARLY 100 BILLION Since 2009, Ali Baba Group’s Tmall (then called Taobao Mall) has started to build the “Double Eleven” shopping festival. By 2015, the “Double Eleven” has spread from Tmall to the whole e-commerce platform, from domestic to global, and has become a shopping carnival for the online shopping force from e-commerce marketing day. On November 11, 2015, snapping up took place in the first minute and 12 seconds, and the turn- over reached 1 billion yuan. In the first 12 minutes and 28 seconds, the trading volume reached 10 billion yuan. As of 00:00 on the 12th, the transaction amount reached 91.217 billion yuan. In 2015, the “Double Eleven” event not only renewed the global 24-hour retail record of single e-commerce in terms of sales but also presented some new changes and features. First, wireless transactions have jumped to become the main bat- tleground for e-commerce consumption with 68% of orders. Tmall adds a lot of shopping experience to the mobile phone, whether it is from shop- ping settings, shaking or giving red envelopes. Mobile phones are becoming more and more people’s consumption tools, and the entire shopping experience has been fully integrated from the traditional PC to the mobile at an extremely fast speed. Secondly, cross-border business is Y. Wang • L. Ying • G. Xiao • J. Yan • X. Li • S. He • A. Lin School of Society and Population, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China © China Renmin University Press 2020 291 S. Liu, J. Wang (eds.), The Internet Society in China, Sociology, Media and Journalism in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8237-6 292 APPENDIX: IMPORTANT NETWORK INCIDENTS FROM 2014 TO 2015 growing rapidly and the trend of consumption internationalization is more obvious. In 2015, the “Double Eleven” was attended by netizens from more than 200 countries and regions on Tmall platform alone, and 460 million logistics orders were generated by the Communist Party. The phenomenon of “buy the world, sell the world” is more common. Third, the trading area has expanded and further spread to the real consumption. Goods and services that traditionally do not fall within the scope of e-com- merce, such as automobiles, real estate, finance, aviation, entertainment and other fields, have also joined the “Double Eleven” promotional activi- ties, showing a boom of nationwide consumption online and offline. Finally, the festival significance of “Double Eleven” celebrations is becom- ing increasingly obvious. In addition to shopping activities, the “Double Eleven” party broadcast live on TV on the evening of November 10 is also driving consumers around the world to jointly welcome the arrival of the “Double Eleven” zero point in 2015 while enjoying the festival culture. The “Double Eleven” is no longer just a shopping carnival for the purpose of coveting cheap goods, and it has begun to penetrate into social life in an all-round way, causing a profound cultural change (Lin Aosong). AN INCIDENT ON THE “TEN-WORD LETTER OF RESIGNATION” BY A FEMALE TEACHER In April 2015, a photo of a resignation letter suddenly became popular in the moments and microblog, causing a heated discussion on the Internet. This resignation letter has only ten words—“the world is so big, I want to see it”—and was rated as “the most literary resignation letter” and “the most sentimental resignation letter in history” and so on. The photo of the resignation letter was forwarded by many official media and microblog “V”, and the topic of “the most literary resignation letter” on microblog reached more than 10,000 discussions and 1,992,000 readings, making the phrase “the world is so big, I want to see it” a popular online phrase in 2015. The author of this resignation letter is Gu Shaoqiang, the backbone teacher of Henan Experimental Middle School who has been teaching for ten years, and this “willful” resignation letter was approved by the leaders. The evolu- tion from an individual behavior to a public event reflects the social fact that the attitude expressed behind this letter of resignation toward life’s natural and unrestrained “willfulness” has become the public’s pursuit—“the world is so big, I want to see” can become a reason for a person to resign, and the person who resigned is still a middle school teacher who is steadfast, stable APPENDIX: IMPORTANT NETWORK INCIDENTS FROM 2014 TO 2015 293 and well paid to outsiders. In real life, people’s determination to pursue their ideal life simply is called out by the ten-word reason for resignation, which is also the “feelings” of “ten-word resignation letter” and the reason for its popularity. After the “ten-word resignation letter”, various “capri- cious” resignation letters appeared on the Internet, such as the resignation of girls because they couldn’t get up in winter, which also triggered social reflection on the capriciousness and responsibility of the younger generation (Lin Aosong). AN INCIDENT ON THE “STRICTEST TOBACCO CONTROL ORDER” IN BEIJING On June 1, 2015, Beijing Tobacco Control Regulation, known as the “most strict tobacco control order in history”, was officially implemented, spark- ing public opinion and heated debate. According to the regulation, smok- ing was prohibited in all indoor public places in Beijing, including office buildings, restaurants, workplaces, public transport and so on, with a com- plete halt to all tobacco promotion activities, individuals found violating the prohibition will be fined the highest of 200 yuan, and smoking was prohib- ited in all the indoor public places “with the tops and covers” summed up by netizens. The implementation of Beijing’s “most controlled smoke order” has received attention not only from smokers, but also because it is expected to be a model of tobacco control in other cities. “Are you control- ling for smoking?” a topic issued by the World Health Organization on Twitter in support of the Beijing Tobacco Control Regulation campaign realized a discussion volume of 61,000 and a reading volume of more than 60 million. Most people expressed strong support for the implementation of the “most controlled smoke order”; it is believed that the “most con- trolled smoke order” implemented by Beijing will be used as an opportunity to gradually achieve the goal of smoke-free China. However, doubts have been expressed as to whether the regulations can actually be implemented and have the desired effect; or that measures such as “no smoking in public places and the workplaces” are too strict and are not fundamental tobacco control measures. Since the tobacco control regulation, the effect is rela- tively significant; with the help of the media, the Internet and other public- ity, the public awareness of the Beijing smoking control regulations increased from 43.43% to 82.64%. In order to prevent tobacco control 294 APPENDIX: IMPORTANT NETWORK INCIDENTS FROM 2014 TO 2015 orders from becoming “the most stringent on paper”, it is also necessary for the whole people to work together to discourage supervision (Lin Aosong). AN INCIDENT ON QINGDAO PRAWN On October 4, 2015, Mr. Xiao in Sichuan posted an article by microblog, saying that he was made to pay through the nose for a seafood meal at a Qingdao restaurant called “Shande Live Seafood Barbecue Home Cuisine”, and the price of 38 yuan was listed on the menu at the time of ordering, while the boss charged 38 yuan as the price of each prawn at the time of checkout. Garlic prawn cost 1520 yuan each. After complaining to the relevant local functional departments about “kicking the ball”, he paid the 800 yuan meal fee for his escape and left. Subsequently, the microblog attracted netizens’ attention. After being forwarded by multi- ple media accounts, public opinion reached a hot climax on October 7, forming the “Qingdao Prawn Incident”. The number of topics read on microblogs is close to 5 million, netizens have reported various experi- ences of tourism slaughter, prepared various jokes to ridicule the incident, and traditional media have also tracked the incident. On October 5, rel- evant Qingdao government departments started an investigation into the incident, punished the businesses involved on the 6th, and then issued a series of notices on standardizing the tourism market and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. The Qingdao prawn inci- dent has highlighted the frequent loss of tourists in the tourism market in recent years and the mutual prevarication and inaction of relevant gov- ernment departments, which has quickly aroused public dissatisfaction. The “friendly Shandong” tourism brand and Qingdao’s city image were severely damaged by the Qingdao prawn incident, which triggered peo- ple’s reflection on the tourism market norms, city image shaping and government management. At the same time, the Qingdao prawn incident shows the timeliness of information dissemination, the concentration of public opinion expression and the role of public opinion in monitoring and promoting the government under the network new media environ- ment (Lin Aosong). APPENDIX: IMPORTANT NETWORK INCIDENTS FROM 2014 TO 2015 295 AN INCIDENT ON THE SUICIDE OF LEFT-BEHIND CHILDREN IN BIJIE At 23:30, June 9, 2015, four left-behind children in Tiankan Township, Guanqu District, Bijie City, Guizhou Province, died at home and were suspected to have committed suicide by drinking pesticides collectively. It is understood that four children—one boy and three girls—are siblings; the eldest brother was 13 years old, the youngest sister was only 5 years old, the father works abroad, the mother has been away from home for many years, and only four children were at home.