Pei Qian flipped through the hot comments from netizens, especially the ones under Boqun Media’s account “Broad Knowledge.”

He found that many supporters of Tenda and those who opposed Tenda were already arguing heatedly.

“Hilarious! Boqun Media was the first to jump out and refute, then immediately got their old dirt exposed by Zheng Hao!”

“Boqun Media has a partnership with Tenda? Yet their performance keeps declining. This proves that Tenda’s value reform isn’t a universal remedy! The previous successes with Longyu Group and Tianhua Studio were merely coincidental encounters with fields that Tenda happens to excel in.”

“Tenda’s behavior reminds me of how some big companies operate: every time they acquire a company, they always send their own people over, claiming they’re changing the company’s values! But after all the changes, the company ends up ruined. I never thought this kind of amateur directing professionals would happen at Tenda Group!”

“Indeed, it seems whether individuals or large companies, once successful, they easily become arrogant. This know-it-all attitude is truly difficult to change in human nature!”

“To those saying this, how many of you have actually read Boqun Media’s articles from now and before? They did have viral articles before, but what were they about? Without exception, they were all about stirring anxiety, creating hatred, and provoking arguments in the comments—the same old tricks. The content was just riding trending topics, rambling with no substance. They appeared to say a lot, but upon careful reflection, the content was hollow and tasteless. Now their articles may have lower popularity, but they’re all substantial!”

“Exactly, I also think that ‘Broad Knowledge’ writes much more pleasant articles now!”

“Keep being sour! A self-media company can barely feed themselves, and you’re still discussing whether their articles are good or not? If you think the articles are good, go share and tip them everywhere. Before, when they wrote viral articles and jumped on hot topics, at least they could eat well. Now they write what you love to read and end up starving nine meals in three days!”

“Why doesn’t Tenda Group just do them a favor? Since you’ve already partnered this far, why not just acquire Boqun Media outright?”

“No way! Boqun Media just wanted to ride Tenda’s coattails for some scraps, but somehow they ended up losing their whole company in the process. Is that reasonable?”

Although many netizens were speaking up for Boqun Media and Tenda Group, they couldn’t stop the greater number of people from mocking and ridiculing them!

Because whether articles are well-written is a very subjective standard, but popularity data and actual income are concrete. Zheng Hao had already listed out the relevant data changes for Boqun Media, and the comparison results were clear at a glance. From a business perspective, after Boqun Media’s transformation, their commercial value had indeed plummeted significantly—this point couldn’t be refuted!

In these debates, Zheng Hao not only withstood the pressure but even showed signs of counterattacking. Seeing this, Pei Qian felt a bit of pleasant surprise.

Regardless of whether Zheng Hao had hired paid commenters, being able to form such an opposing trend online was truly hard-won!

In previous public opinion battles, even with paid commenters, the Anti-Tenda Alliance had still been utterly crushed by Tenda Group. Now they were at least at a stalemate!

Pei Qian could feel slightly more at ease. He knew that the Anti-Tenda Alliance would ultimately be defeated in the public opinion war. But Pei Qian hoped that this time, the Anti-Tenda Alliance could hold out longer—the longer they persisted, the stronger their motivation to counterattack would be after their defeat!

With next month approaching, when Tenda would launch a batch of new projects including the gaming router, having this public opinion war continue a bit longer would be good for diverting attention from the new products’ popularity.

With this thought, Pei Qian turned his attention to other departments of the company.

……

Meanwhile, Xia Jiang had just completed an interview assignment and was carefully organizing her notes at her workstation.

As a media professional in the gaming industry, she naturally kept a close eye on developments in the domestic gaming industry, never missing any online hot topics.

The debate between Boqun Media and Zheng Hao regarding the Tenda model had generated extremely high interest in a very short time—it would have been difficult for Xia Jiang not to notice!

Tenda Group and the Anti-Tenda Alliance had already engaged in a series of public opinion battles. At this critical juncture, the topic was already hot, and since Zheng Hao had finally managed to suppress Tenda Group in public opinion, he naturally wanted to add fuel to the fire to make it gain even greater influence!

Watching the online discussions gradually tilt in favor of the Anti-Tenda Alliance, Xia Jiang paused her work and said indignantly, “This is outrageous!”

“The internet age is truly chaotic. It’s difficult to properly explain something, but it’s far too easy to muddy the waters!”

“Tenda Group’s transformation of Boqun Media is clearly a good thing, but because of temporary declines in traffic and performance, Zheng Hao seized the opportunity to attack relentlessly! What’s most infuriating is that there are actually many people who find his arguments reasonable?”

“Since when did the evaluation of media become solely about profit? Isn’t this just the media version of ‘laugh at the poor but not at the immoral’?”

“A self-media company creates solid content, but poor profitability is seen as a disgrace! Yet if they gain traffic and popularity through riding trending topics, escalating conflicts, fearmongering, clickbait titles, and provoking arguments in comment sections—earning tainted money—they somehow win countless people’s admiration!”

“As a media professional who pursues truth and fairness, I simply can’t stand by and watch!”

Xia Jiang felt that as a conscientious media professional, she needed to stand up and say something to support Boqun Media!

Self-media companies that upheld standards and conveyed positive values to society were far too rare.

Boqun Media truly deserved to be a company collaborating with Tenda Group; their values were consistently upright!

But while Xia Jiang had the heart to help, she didn’t know where to begin.

She was indeed an editor for an official platform, but her influence was quite limited. Moreover, getting involved in such a situation could potentially intensify conflicts and make matters more chaotic, possibly even doing more harm than good!

Xia Jiang frowned, deep in thought.

Just then, her phone vibrated, receiving an internal notification.

“Hmm? The Network Management Office’s special deployment meeting just ended, and they’re going to conduct special rectification of the current self-media industry?”

“Excellent! These self-media outlets should have been regulated long ago!”

Xia Jiang immediately searched online and found that some authoritative media had already begun comprehensive follow-ups.

“In response to current issues in the network self-media industry—spreading false information, distorting facts, promoting wrong values, malicious marketing, intensifying conflicts and other chaos—the National Network Management Office has convened a special deployment meeting to fully strengthen the deployment of standardized management work for the self-media industry. Starting from June 25th, a three-month ‘Special Governance Activity for Further Strengthening Basic Management of Self-Media’ will be carried out nationwide to promote the healthy and orderly development of the self-media industry.”

Xia Jiang clicked on several larger portal websites and self-media operating platforms, quickly discovering that these websites and platforms had also successively posted notices about the rectification of self-media activities.

Clearly, this special deployment meeting had been in preparation for some time. The relevant departments had long noticed the chaos in the wild development of self-media and were determined to rectify it!

However, the procedural time was quite long, and only now had the plan been finalized.

These major portal sites had definitely received the news first, and they had no choice but to cooperate unconditionally!

The self-media industry had previously developed slowly, in a state of unbridled growth, without sufficient attention from the relevant authorities. As a result, these portal sites, for the sake of greater popularity, had been extremely tolerant of these out-of-line self-media outlets. Whether it was plagiarism, rewrites, or publishing sensational articles, these platforms had turned a blind eye, enjoying the popularity and traffic that self-media brought them.

But now, once regulation began, these websites didn’t dare to continue defying regulations and immediately began self-inspection.

Upon this inspection, the self-media industry was found to be in a state of widespread devastation!

Unlike traditional media, self-media had very low entry barriers, and practitioners came from all walks of life. Many self-media creators weren’t originally from the media industry, so they lacked respect for this profession.

Although traditional media also had some reporters who, for the sake of popularity, violated the conscience and bottom line of a journalist and published many sensationalist reports, they were generally the minority.

But self-media was different—without restrictions, it naturally grew wildly.

In pursuit of popularity, they would stop at nothing; the bolder they were, the higher their popularity!

All kinds of unethical viral articles emerged one after another. Other self-media naturally studied the characteristics of these viral articles and emulated them. Over time, the entire environment became a chaotic mess.

As soon as the rectification activity began, they were all rounded up at once!

Many self-media accounts with keen instincts had already sent out survival signals, expressing their willingness to fully cooperate with the rectification action and conduct self-examination of their content.

Those small accounts with less sensitive instincts were still defying regulations, but they were only experiencing their final frenzy. The websites would soon lock all their accounts for violations.

A storm was about to sweep through!

Xia Jiang felt somewhat relieved, seeing that her concerns were unnecessary. The relevant authorities had launched this special rectification with overwhelming force to combat the chaos in the self-media industry. Since Boqun Media had already completed their own rectification ahead of time, they could not only survive this industry turmoil but could even thrive!

Wouldn’t it be appropriate to establish such a company as a positive example?

Xia Jiang immediately submitted a report to her direct supervisor, highlighting Boqun Media’s achievements.

Very clearly, against the backdrop of cracking down on chaos in the self-media industry, Boqun Media’s accomplishments were worthy of being promoted as a positive case study.

If all self-media could learn from Boqun Media, then the entire self-media industry wouldn’t have become such a chaotic mess requiring the relevant authorities to personally intervene.

Xia Jiang wasn’t sure how effective her report would be, but she felt she needed to contribute her small part to this matter!