Shiguang Blog

On the domestic internet, this sudden incident sparked unprecedented heat. Platforms including Penguin, Penguin Taotao, and the still-active Xiaonei Network all saw a massive surge in discussion topics.

Among them, "disaster relief" and "early warning text messages" became trending keywords.

Huang Xiuyuan, who remained hidden behind the scenes, had long since cleared away all traces and instructed Lin Baijie to launch a blog software that had been prepared in advance.

The name of this blog software was Shiguang Blog. Originally, this software would not have been easy to grow, but Huang Xiuyuan brought out a major topic.

On May 13, the seemingly rushed launch of Shiguang Blog was pushed to the forefront of public attention by two major pieces of news.

Pinned to the homepage of Shiguang Blog were several news reports, one of which was titled: <Huang Xiuyuan to Donate 500 Million Yuan to Disaster Areas>.

This news, combined with reports of Suiren Company forming a disaster relief team, made Shiguang Blog an instant hit.

The single-day download and installation count reached 1.73 million. However, because Shiguang Blog required real-name registration, only about 1.23 million people opened their own blog accounts.

On Huang Xiuyuan's personal blog, to avoid skepticism, he pinned a post explaining the reason for the donation and how the funds would be used, finally attaching a link.

This link redirected to a sub-program of Shiguang Blog called "Charity Home." Because it was launched in such a hurry, it looked quite rudimentary at the moment.

The purpose of Charity Home was to ensure that every cent was used reasonably and fully. Everything purchased, everything built, and every location or individual that received aid had to be made completely public.

The first batch of funds included 20 million yuan for emergency food procurement, 10 million for emergency tents, 10 million for daily necessities, and 10 million for diesel generators.

While everyone was skeptical at first, as time passed, Suiren Company—led by Huang Weichang and Chang Fuguo of the procurement team—formed a special support group and began purchasing and customizing supplies all over the country.

The publication of photos, procurement lists, and purchase contracts made the attention on Shiguang Blog rise to unprecedented heights. By May 20, it had accumulated 11.35 million registered users.

Under Huang Xiuyuan's personal blog:

[Why not open up a donation channel?] -- Years of Peace

[If this is marketing, I hope it happens more often.] -- Fifty Cents

[@Years of Peace, Charity Home is similar to a personal charitable foundation and cannot solicit donations from the public.] -- Fa Kao Luo Xiang

[Hope my hometown family and friends are all safe and sound.] -- Rongcheng User 1825...

[By the way, what kind of company is Suiren, the parent company of Shiguang Blog?] -- North and South

[@North and South, Suiren Company has an official website with some introductions. It seems they are engaged in waste recycling, gas production and sales, etc.] -- Primary School Monk

Over a week passed, and with the concerted efforts of a large number of rescue personnel, northwestern Sichuan initially returned to normal.

Huang Xiuyuan was also monitoring the situation at all times. When he saw certain data, he knew that his butterfly effect had already caused massive changes.

Due to the early notification from the warning text messages, as of now, the loss of life was far lower than the figures in his memory—only about one-thirtieth of what it had been.

Investing 500 million in disaster relief was, in fact, more beneficial than harmful for him and Suiren Company.

The total capital Huang Xiuyuan controlled, both openly and covertly, through Huang's International in Xiangjiang, had already reached 320 million USD.

As his investments grew larger and the company expanded, many monsters and demons might come knocking. This 500 million donation was a protective talisman.

Coupled with his other identity as an outstanding alumnus of Harbin Institute of Technology, as long as he followed the law, there would be no major problems domestically.

With tens of millions of users, the heat surrounding Shiguang Blog began to gradually decline after more than ten days of turbulence.

However, the development of Shiguang Blog had initially found its footing; at least the usage of the charitable donations Huang Xiuyuan had poured in was being updated daily.

One hundred million in hard cash had already been spent on emergency supplies.

After reviewing Chang Fuguo's report, Huang Xiuyuan issued further instructions to launch a "work-for-relief" model, allocating 200 million from the donations to repair township roads.

Suiren Company contracted 200 kilometers of township roads to construction companies in other parts of Shu Province at a price of 1 million per kilometer.

The contracting companies were required to hire locals, using the work-for-relief method to indirectly promote re-employment and the resumption of production.

This move made Shiguang Blog popular once again, with the total number of users reaching 18.34 million.

Huang Xiuyuan took the opportunity to spin Shiguang Blog off from Suiren Company, establishing a subsidiary: Shiguang Information Technology Company.

He invested 100 million in capital to kick off the massive expansion of Shiguang Blog, and the large number of programmers who joined further refined the platform.

Whether the future Zhalang Blog would still be able to rise was truly a question.

For Shiguang Blog, he integrated an intelligent screening system developed by the Software Laboratory, effectively reducing the workload of manual screening.

As a platform that pushed for real-name registration from the start, Shiguang Blog also avoided some trouble, preventing the difficulty of "turning a large ship" later on.

Huang Xiuyuan had a very clear positioning for Shiguang Blog: "Neutral platform views, authentic user posts, and the dissemination of positive values."

After these days of operation, even without intentional investigation, he had already sensed the movements of some monsters and demons.

As a countermeasure, he instructed Jiang Miao, the general manager of Shiguang Blog, to activate the screening system and simultaneously open a brand-new section: Boku.

Boku was similar to the future Zhihu, yet it had certain differences.

This new section would invite a group of professionals to join. At the same time, Shiguang Blog would establish a Content Evaluation Studio to evaluate all user posts in the most rigorous and scientific way to determine if there was any malicious rumor-mongering.

Clearly, this Content Evaluation Studio was targeting "public intellectuals," "pro-foreign factions," and "fake news." The more followers and attention a blogger had, the more likely they were to be subject to content evaluation.

Furthermore, to combat the culture of rumor-mongering, Shiguang Blog, which used real-name registration, would permanently archive "problematic" posts, mark them with specific tags, and explain the issues within them.

Within three days of the Content Evaluation Studio's establishment, 16 highly-liked posts were marked with clear "problem tags."

Suddenly, a group of bloggers who sensed something was wrong rushed to modify or delete their posts. Unfortunately, they didn't know that as long as content received over 1,000 real clicks, the backend of Shiguang Blog would permanently back it up; modifications were useless.

The dozen or so bloggers who were publicly executed had their blog certifications marked in "red."

For instance, the blogger known as Ai Dajin was labeled with "American" and "Fabricator of False History," which made the guy jump around in a rage, constantly posting articles to explain himself.

However, Shiguang Blog remained unmoved by this and simply refused to change the labels. Even if these people deleted their own posts, those records would be permanently retained in their history logs.

The message Shiguang Blog wanted to convey was that the internet is not a place beyond the reach of the law; a blog is a public network where everyone has the right to speak, but at the same time, everyone must be held accountable for their own words.

On the other side.

After the real money for charitable donations was distributed, Huang Xiuyuan received praise from quite a few state media outlets, and even People's Daily wrote a dedicated article about it.

This indicated that his name was already being noted by those at the top.

These days, the other businesses of Suiren Company remained unaffected and were still steadily moving forward.