Online Education Advertising Chaos: Is It Illegal To Master 90% Of The Key And Difficult Points In 20 Class Hours?

As education and training advertisements are sweeping in, the illegal content of advertisements has become an increasingly serious problem.

Recently, TutorABC, an online English education organization, received a fine of 100000 yuan from Chaoyang District market supervision and Administration Bureau of Beijing Municipality for its slogan "all foreign teachers in the world are here" and "only 3000 words in 21 days". At the same time, also received the ticket was the CCTV "315 party" has been exposed hi learning network, was fined 100000 yuan.

"Online education advertisements occupy almost all major websites, but there are a lot of illegal behaviors and fringes. It is only because of the limited ability of local administrative law enforcement that it is difficult to investigate and deal with all of them." An industry source told the 21st century economic reporter.

The advertising law makes specific provisions on the content and punishment of false advertisements, and also makes special provisions for education and training advertisements.

According to the public administrative penalty data, the 21st century economic report reporters found that the illegal education advertisements mainly focus on "making explicit or implied guarantee commitment to the educational effect", "making recommendations in the name or image of the beneficiary", "cheating and misleading consumers with false or misleading contents".

There are many illegal phenomena in online education advertisements

According to the 21st century economic report, from January to October this year, the website of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of market supervision published 119 administrative punishments against educational institutions. Among them, 44 cases were punished for illegal advertising, ranking the second among all the penalties, second only to the cases in which business licenses were revoked due to continuous suspension of business.

In particular, since May this year, the epidemic has gradually stabilized, and educational institutions have begun to resume enrollment. The number and proportion of illegal advertising cases have increased significantly, accounting for 73% of all cases in the same period.

Among the 44 cases, 27 were offline educational institutions and 17 were online educational institutions.

According to the business field, there were 17 K12 extracurricular counseling, 7 early education and quality education, and 20 college students' examinations and adult vocational training. K12 extra-curricular training institutions are in the "tuyere" of advertising violations accounted for a considerable proportion of all illegal cases.

According to the types of advertising, enrollment ads accounted for the vast majority, with 37, 4 joining ads, and 3 others (promotion tool app, etc.).

According to the amount of fines, there are three cases of fines above 200000 yuan, eight cases of 100000-200000 yuan, five cases of 50000-100000 yuan, eight cases of 10000-50000 yuan, and 20 cases of less than 10000 yuan. The maximum fine is 300000 yuan and the minimum is 100 yuan. It can be seen that even the same city's law enforcement departments, the difference in the amount of fines is also large, but on the whole, the amount of fines is low.

The delicate boundary of violating the law or not

Article 24 of the advertising law stipulates that advertisements for education and training shall not make explicit or implied guarantee undertakings for entering a higher school, passing an examination, obtaining a degree or qualification certificate, or the effect of education or training.

The above illegal advertising language of TutorABC is considered to be in violation of the ban. In reality, it is not only "as long as you memorize 3000 words in prison for 21 days", which refers to specific objectives, is considered as "guaranteed commitment", and the relatively vague formulation is also illegal.

For example, a poster of a discipline guidance and training institution in Shanghai was fined 20000 yuan for "guaranteed score raising"; Yousi's one-on-one website of K12 online education institution was fined 4000 yuan for "truly efficient score raising".

For primary and secondary school students, "score raising" is the most attractive advertisement, and for adult vocational training, the most attractive is "salary increase".

ExcelHome cloud classroom, an online IT training institution, narrates in a narrative way the salary of a company's staff is 5000 yuan and that of its supervisor is 20000 yuan. The difference in ability is reflected in the level of using Excel software.

This paper not only states that this kind of educational commitment of the audience is strengthened through the content of the subsequent education.

"In reality, the probability of illegal educational advertising is very high, especially focusing on the guarantee of educational effect. However, due to the limited ability of local administrative law enforcement, it is difficult to investigate and deal with all illegal phenomena." An industry source told the 21st century economic reporter.

Take the online education advertisements published on Tencent's video app as an example, many of which are "very similar" to the content of the punished cases.

For example, in the advertisement of "Chinese reading and writing class" in the live broadcast class of homework, the slogan of "Mastering 90% of the key and difficult points of the required examination in 20 class hours" was put out.

"This video can change a child's life. If you can give me four days, I can make your child's English score sprint high. No matter whether he is the basis of 60 points or 90 points, as long as you solve the problem of words, English will become very simple."

The young people got an advertisement for "Quan Ling's writing ability improvement class", which was said to be "a writing skill course that key schools are also learning". Zhang Quanling, a famous host of CCTV, appeared in the advertisement and said, "let your child have a Chinese lesson. Even if you are just in primary school, you can dictate a composition of 500 words on the spot."

"Online education advertisements occupy almost every major website, constantly selling anxiety to parents, and at the same time, vaguely hint at the magical effect of online education, with the purpose of attracting students." The industry said.

But in reality, it is only because of the lack of law enforcement power that illegal acts can not be fully investigated and dealt with? Is it also related to the difficulty to identify the "guarantee commitment" in the advertising law?

Zhu Wei, deputy director of the communication law research center of China University of political science and law, told reporters, "when enforcing the advertising law, we often emphasize two levels of Illegality: one is whether there are clear restrictive contents such as" guaranteed commitment ", and the other is whether these contents lead to misguided advertising audiences."

This leads to the "flexibility" of advertising law enforcement, that is, if the advertisement is not deemed to mislead the audience enough, it will not be considered as illegal content.

Students can't "speak for themselves"

"Recommending and proving in the name or image of the beneficiary" is also a disaster area for illegal education advertisements.

At the beginning of 2019, tifang online, a K12 online education institution, once advertised on its official website, introducing the situation of several students who "have made breakthroughs here", including their names, schools and scores in the high school entrance examination. In the above-mentioned advertisements, students (i.e. the beneficiaries) are regarded as the identity of the students to recommend and prove their courses and teaching quality. The final fine was 6000 yuan.

EF education has also set up a "star student" column on its wechat service account for young children, and has published four advertisements in the name of four minor students. This was deemed illegal by law enforcement, and EF education withdrew the ads early this year.

Franchising is an important business mode of traditional offline education institutions. Educational institutions need to publish franchise advertisements to find potential investors. Article 25 of the advertising law stipulates that advertisements for goods or services with expected return on investment, such as investment promotion, shall give reasonable tips or warnings to the possible risks and the assumption of risk liability, and shall not make any guarantee commitment to the future effect, income or related situations, express or imply that the principal is guaranteed, no risk is guaranteed or the profit is guaranteed.

However, from December 30, 2019 to March 2, 2020, onli International Education publicized "0 experience investment, 1-stop service" in the investment promotion advertisement, whether you have education industry background or not, you can operate the school easily. The above-mentioned risk of investment or the risk that may not be recognized as reasonable.

False advertisement and false propaganda

In addition to the content requirements for education and training advertisements, the advertising law also stipulates how to identify false advertisements. In reality, educational advertising is easy to violate the "other situations of deceiving and misleading consumers with false or misleading contents" in the advertising law.

A volunteer app for college entrance examination newspaper, named youvolunteer, said in its advertisement that 689 universities have settled on the platform. From September to October, 2019, law enforcement officers visited some universities in Shanghai, Jinan, Fuzhou, Kunming, Changchun and other places that provided the application forms. The visiting universities indicated that they had not settled in the excellent volunteer platform, nor authorized the platform to release university information.

In addition to the provisions of the advertising law on false advertising, the anti unfair competition law also stipulates that no false or misleading commercial publicity is allowed. In reality, there are also cases of punishing educational institutions according to the anti unfair competition law.

In October 2018, a user reported in writing to the State Administration of market supervision and administration of the false publicity of the online education platform Suntech institutions. The contents of the report include "cooperation with Yunnan University, Yunnan University of Finance and economics and Yunnan Normal University in the enrollment publicity process", "claiming that Suntech institutions are student aid institutions designated by the State Education Department, and will increase if they do not register with Suntech institutions Mid term and final exam! "

In March 2019, the law enforcement department found that Suntech had violated the anti unfair competition law, and imposed a fine of 500000 yuan.

"In reality, the law enforcement departments are more applicable to the advertising law, and the anti unfair competition law is more about adjusting the market competition order, that is, the disputes between enterprises to protect their rights, but the anti unfair competition law has greater punishment and stronger deterrent power." Zhu Wei said.