A Late Apology = Suicide

"I'm not a scumbag! What did I do?!" Wen Jie, who comes from the UK and really loves Chinese culture, was so upset that his photo was spread all over the internet along with plenty of foreigners' photos who were described as "scumbags". What happened? Let's introduce Wen Jie to you, first.

Jackson, whose Chinese name is Wen Jie, is a real fan of Chinese culture. He studied Chinese in London University for bachelor degree. After that, he was recommended to take part in the 15th Chinese Bridge Competition and he won the Grand Prize. What's more, he also became 2016 Ambassador of Chinese Tourism Promotions. Then you are probably curious about why this outstanding English boy was connected with scumbag?

On 8th February, 2017, a Chinese girl who was studying in the UK died, because of her foreign boyfriend's violence behavior. This news caused a sensation in China. Then College Daily, the most popular WeChat Public Platform among students who study in North America, posted an article named "Girls Who Study Abroad, Stay Away from These Scumbags! Be Careful of All These 'Foreign' Tricks!", on 10th February. (They already deleted the article, so we can't link it.) This article listed all kinds of scumbags, who trick Chinese girls. For instance, foreign boys may learn few Chinese terms, like "I love you", and "You are beautiful", to please Chinese girls. Of course, there were some pictures of the murder who killed that Chinese girl in the UK. But, the thing is that they also put a picture of Wen Jie near the part, which talked about how foreigners learn Chinese to seduce girls. The article became so popular that if you type the title of this article on Baidu (a search service like Google), you can find that most of the authoritative news websites also posted this article. (Most of them have already deleted the post.)

The post with Wen Jie's photo.

When Kaisi searched the title online, the first page was full of it.

It is so obviously that College Daily vilified Wen Jie's reputation, right? As we all known, groundswell has a huge power today. It's not wise for us to fight with groundswell, especially when we are the one who makes mistakes. Therefore, we should never try to cover the mistakes like nothing happened. So, at the time that College Daily realize this issue, the best solution for them is to remove the article on their platform first and apologize to Wen Jie, publicly, right?  BUT, let's see what happened next.

After six days from the article was posted, another WeChat Public Platform, called "Kaisi Wu", posted an article, named "Why Don't You Apologize, College Daily!", on 16th February. The article became a hot topic immediately because the author Kaisi, who is Wen Jie's friend, described how badly College Daily dealt with this issue in this article.

Wen Jie's Post on WeChat

Kaisi showed us that Wen Jie forwarded the College Daily's post on his WeChat moments, and expressed how upset and angry he was, on 10th February. Kaisi and Wen Jie found the editor of College Daily, Peter. Wen Jie told Peter that he was too busy to deal with this issue and also because that Kaisi was majored in intellectual property, so he wrote an authorization to let Kaisi manage his right of reputation issue. But the editor, Peter, refused to talk with Kaisi, because Peter claimed that Kaisi doesn't have any legal license or the authentication of the embassy. Ok, if this really is their concern, then why didn't College Daily offer a solution on how to solve this problem? 

Wen Jie recorded the content of Peter and him's phone call

After many times Kaisi tried to talk to Peter and he refused to communicate, Wen Jie send a solution to Peter and asked Peter to delete all the articles, then apologize to him, publicly, and compensate for his loss about 100 dollars. Guess what did Peter say? Peter called Wen Jie, on 12th February, two days past after the day Wen found College Daily. Peter said they agreed to delete the article, but refused to apologize publicly and compensate. (Fortunately, the phone call was recorded by Wen Jie.)

However, College Daily only deleted the article on their own platform after four days, which is 16th February.  After all of these, Kaisi and Wen Jie decided to write an article to expose what did College Daily do to solve this problem.

The Two Posts from College Daily

Here comes the most interesting part, College Daily posted two articles right behind Kaisi's post, on 16th February. Instead of an sincere apology letter, at first, they posted an article to draw the viewers' attention on Kaisi. College Daily weakened their mistakes, and apologized simply. They even said that they deleted the post at the time they know this illegal issue. Really? Then why didn't they deleted it on 12th when they were told about this issue? Besides, by blaming Kaisi and Wen Jie that they were the one who can't be connected, they tried to move all the audiences' concentration into Kaisi.  They claimed that Kaisi was marketing himself because he wants to be popular. Logically, none of the argument makes sense. Then they posted another article to "sincerely" apologize to Wen Jie. 

Just like some of the comments of Kaisi's article, College Daily did a really bad crisis communication. If we are wrong, the first thing to do is to admit it, instead of blaming others. The faster we apologize, the more possible our audiences forgive us. Most of people who commented on Kaisi's post, they complained how College Daily "steal" others articles and photos without authors' authorization. The top comments are all blaming the College Daily and they support Kaisi and Wen Jie. 

The Top Comments on Kaisi's Post

Not to mention the comments on College Daily's posts, most people said that it has took too long for College Daily to admit their mistakes. The viewers also questioned their sincerity. 

The Comments on College Daily's Post

All these consequences of this "social-media-battle" were so clear from the beginning of this crisis.  We need to be aware of that groundswell is not what we can control now. If something happened, what we need to do is to deal with it ASAP. Like what happened to the College Daily, pouring the "dirty water" towards Kaisi didn't make anything better, only the apology did. Thus, admitting your mistakes is our first priority. Be honest and transparency like what Kaisi did, then, our audiences will trust us.

One thing that attracted our attention is that both sides knows how to use the advantages of social media to communicate with their consumers. Replying to people who write reviews early and often is also worth learning from both College Daily and Kaisi.