Recently, Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of the live streaming platform Douyu, was exposed to have been out of touch for the past three weeks, sparking heated discussions.
The Douyu official did not respond to the reason for Chen Shaojie's loss of contact. At present, Chen Shaojie's loss of contact has not affected the normal operation of the company. Multiple Douyu employees told Interface News that all internal operations of the company are normal.
Previously, the official account named "Legal Compliance Department of Social Products" had sent a document saying that it was learned that the person in charge of a large live broadcast platform was arrested by a local public security organ in Sichuan province on suspicion of opening a casino recently, so there was market speculation or the loss of contact with Chen Shaojie, but it has not been verified at present, and the above tweet has also been deleted.
The review and management of live streaming content has always been a major operational challenge faced by live streaming platforms such as Douyu and Huya. Due to vulgar and pornographic content on the platform, live streaming platforms such as Douyu, Huya, Yingke, and Huajiao have all received rectification notices. Looking back at previous public cases, some of the live streaming rooms on Douyu platform were previously convicted of opening a casino for live streaming content.
In 2022, the court of Dujiangyan Irrigation Project City, Sichuan Province, heard the first case of using the live broadcast platform to open a casino, and the live broadcast room involved in the case was just the fighting platform "to send nine outdoor". According to the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project Municipal Court, "Send to Nine Outdoor" is a live broadcast group composed of members such as Fu XX, Pan XX, JT, and the Great Demon of Haoke. From March 2017 to September 2020, Fu and Pan used the lottery module of the Douyu platform "Fan Welfare Society" to set the amount and number of prizes in advance, and organized "Water Friends" to participate in the lottery.
During the live broadcast, Fu and Pan kept promoting the concept of "taking 50000 yuan home with one card" and "striving to turn a bike into a motorcycle". Through Douyu platform, WeChat group, and other means, fans were required to purchase designated props and gifts for a period of time to participate in a virtual currency lottery worth 1000 to tens of thousands of yuan, ultimately attracting nearly 120 million yuan. By the time of being captured, more than 4200 lucky draws were organized, with over 4.42 million participants.
Sending Nine Outdoor "is not the only gambling live broadcast room, and the Douyu live broadcast room called" Changsha Rural Death Squad "has also been exposed to use platform lottery rules for suspected gambling activities. The rules set by the "Changsha Rural Daredevil Team" are similar to those of "Sending Nine Outdoors", where users have the opportunity to withdraw large amounts of cash upon purchasing items in the live broadcast room.
Due to the fact that the live streaming content caters to the psychology of gamblers, these types of live streaming rooms often perform outstandingly in terms of rewards and traffic. According to the data from the third-party data platform "Top List", in 2020, even after 117 days of suspension, the annual revenue of "Sending Nine Outdoor" was still as high as 114.16 million yuan. "Changsha Rural Daredevil Team" was also selected as one of the top ten Douyu anchors in 2020 due to its popularity in the live broadcast room.
In the end, the anchor involved in the case of "Sending Nine Outdoors" was sentenced by the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project Municipal Court of Sichuan Province to constitute the crime of opening a casino, and finally sentenced the anchor to pay XX and Pan a fixed term imprisonment of 6 years according to law. Zhou, his logistics and financial personnel, was given a suspended sentence according to law, and a fine of 1.65 million yuan was imposed on three people.
It is worth mentioning that the live streaming guilds behind "Sending Nine Outdoor" and "Changsha Rural Daredevil Team" are Chengdu Jiutu Cultural Media Co., Ltd. and Hunan Yuxiaomaru Network Technology Co., Ltd., both of which have received strategic investments from Douyu. This is also a product of the era of competition for top anchors. Investing in big anchor brokerage companies and binding big anchors through equity is a common method in the industry. In addition to Jiutu Culture and Yuxiaomaru, companies such as Shumulei and Yuwan Media all have Douyu's presence.
As for whether and what kind of responsibility the live streaming platform should bear in the gambling incident in the live streaming room, Lawyer Liu Anbang from Deheng Law Firm once stated in an interview with a reporter from Nandu that it is necessary to consider the situation. If the live streaming platform is aware of its criminal behavior, intentionally indulges or secretly supports it, then the live streaming platform and corresponding responsible personnel are suspected of aiding in the establishment of a casino; If the live streaming platform is unaware of its criminal behavior but fails to fulfill its regulatory obligations, the corresponding department shall punish the live streaming platform; If the live streaming platform is unaware of its criminal behavior and has fulfilled its regulatory obligations, then the live streaming platform does not assume responsibility, but should improve its regulatory obligations to prevent similar situations from occurring.
In April 2022, the Network Audiovisual Program Management Department of the State Administration of Radio and Television and the Publishing Bureau of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China jointly issued a notice on strengthening the management of live streaming games on online audiovisual program platforms. It is explicitly stated that the press and publication bureaus and radio and television bureaus of multiple provinces and cities are required to strengthen the management of live game content broadcasting and strengthen the guidance of game hosts' behavior norms for key online audio-visual platforms and related game enterprises within their respective jurisdictions.
Due to factors such as short video ecological competition and industry regulation, the growth of live streaming platforms' own traffic has faced bottlenecks. The second quarter financial report data shows that compared to last year, the monthly active users and quarterly average paid users of Douyu and Huya have both decreased, and the downward trend has continued for multiple quarters.
In the current era of increasingly strict content auditing on live streaming platforms, the grassy ecology formed in the early stages of industry development is constantly being eliminated, and the entire industry is gradually returning to the competition for high-quality content. Chen Shaojie's last public appearance so far was during the Douyu Q2 financial report conference call, during which he stated that Douyu had improved the platform's relevant rules and procedures, with the goal of long-term development of the platform and actively cooperating with regulatory work in the future.
The idea of using broadcasters to "scrape the edge" and relying on content forms such as low-level fun to gain traffic is no longer feasible. How to support high-quality content ecology, retain users with content, and improve paid conversion is the long-term solution that can promote the healthy development of the industry.