Digging Up Trouble: Why ‘Treasure Hunting’ Videos Must Be Held to the Law
Rule of Law Daily: “Treasure Hunting” videos must not be allowed to become a hotbed of illegal crimes
2024-11-04 07:33:43
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Central Cyberspace Administration of China have recently jointly deployed a special campaign to clean up and rectify relevant illegal content to provide information convenience or assistance for illegal and criminal activities such as robbing ancient tombs and reselling cultural relics in online short videos and live broadcasts. “Treasure hunting”, “adventure” and “sky-high prices” are used as gimmicks to distort the value of archaeological work, illegal identification, misleading the public and other issues to be intensively rectified.
As the craze for archaeology and collection continues to heat up, short videos on the Internet about topics such as “grave exploration” in the wild and “treasure appraisal” online have attracted much attention. However, some of the contents in these videos are mysterious, eccentric, and even violate the legal red line. For example, some bloggers take advantage of people’s curiosity about ancient tombs, claiming to be able to “hunt for treasures” and “get rich overnight”, fake archaeological excavation sites or privately explore ancient tombs for live broadcasts; others use the banner of “treasure appraisal” to live broadcast They pretended to be experts to conduct false appraisals, and even deliberately identified ordinary items as precious cultural relics in order to defraud money.
Archeology and cultural relic identification are extremely rigorous, professional and meticulous tasks. Through short videos and live broadcasts, more people can learn about archeology and cultural relics. This is worthy of recognition, but it must not be false or joking. In particular, some bloggers have many fans and strong appeal. Spreading bad content in videos will inevitably have a wide range of negative impacts. They will not only mislead the public, or “lead the way” to tomb robbers, but also disrupt the order of cultural relics management, endanger the safety of cultural relics, and hinder the cultural relics safety. The healthy development of the cultural relic appraisal industry will also cause great interference to young people whose values have not been finalized and undermine the construction of spiritual civilization.
“Treasure hunting” videos must not be allowed to become a breeding ground for illegal crimes. This time, the two departments have organically linked up to rectify the chaos. It can be said that it is very timely and necessary. By strengthening supervision, relevant platforms and websites will be effectively urged to strengthen the implementation of their responsibilities. For example, website platforms must strengthen qualification review, content review and information filtering, and standardize relevant key short video and live broadcast operation services to ensure correct guidance and content safety. Resolutely resist the use of vulgar and novelty-based means to conduct live broadcasts and deceive traffic. For those suspected of illegal crimes, we must cooperate with the requirements of law enforcement departments and transfer relevant case clues and information.
Special actions are not only an inherent requirement to protect historical heritage, but also a beneficial move to purify the network environment. Relevant departments must actively work together to strengthen publicity and education, unblock reporting channels, promote the participation of the whole society and effective supervision, and form a strong synergy to effectively safeguard the dignity of cultural heritage and protect the purity of our online homeland.