(ECNS) -- More than 70 percent of those polled said influential Internet users should be legally responsible for the ads they forward, while 31 percent supported online advertisements, according to a survey by China Youth Daily.
Big Vs, or popular bloggers with many followers on microblogging sites, often endorse brands or services by forwarding explicit or implicit ads online. The subject of whether or to what extent they should be legally liable is a controversial one.
Zhang Guohua, head of the advertisement supervision department under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, has said that influential bloggers bear a responsibility for ads they publish and could face legal liability if the ads are illegal.
In the survey, 70.6 percent agreed that Big Vs have a responsibility for ads they share and 14.3 percent said the opposite. The survey also found 28.4 percent said their purchasing decisions were affected by ads forwarded by Internet celebrities, while 29.6 percent said it's normal for Big Vs to turn their influence into profit-making.
Ma Ruijie, an associate professor at Nankai University, said it's reasonable to expect Big Vs to be responsible for ads they share, as it's required by advertising law.
Ma also said the Big Vs can generate as widespread an influence as stars in the Internet age, and it's the trend for them to be held legally liable too.
The survey found 23.7 percent doubted online advertisements, which also won trust among 30.9 percent of respondents.
The top three most annoying forms of online ads were recognized as pop-ups (69.8 percent), floating ads (60.7 percent) and embedded commercials in videos (50.1 percent).
