Can NetEase Cloud Music Be Your Therapist?
In its comments section, NetEase Cloud Music, one of China’s leading music apps, has been seeing a depressive trend in recent months — literally.
Mixed in with genuine cries for help are comments with fake emotional stories written to gain likes and popularity on the app. “I’m only 12 years old, but have been diagnosed with depression for 20 years,” reads one highly upvoted comment on the platform.
Unlike music streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music, NetEase Cloud Music acts as an interactive online community where users can leave comments below songs and receive likes or replies from other listeners. Today, the app has more than 800 million registered users and 30 million tracks.
But depressive comments on the platform have become such a pervasive trend that netizens have renamed it “NetDepressed Cloud Music,” and made memes about it. Some users have even turned to rival apps such as QQ Music because they find NetEase’s comments section too sad.
In response, NetEase Cloud Music recently launched a campaign to clean up its comments section. Vowing to punish users who make up or copy stories to gain popularity, the company has also said it will recruit professional therapists and thousands of volunteers to reach out to users who leave sad comments, and provide free online consultations for users in need.
Since that announcement, it has also added a function allowing users to send virtual hugs to each other. The company will also invite content moderators to write song critiques and funny comments in an effort to relieve some of the emotional heaviness.
It remains to be seen how helpful a music app can actually be, but experts say that big data may provide insight into users’ mental health conditions. Even though psychological evaluation can’t be conducted solely based on online comments, the platform does have advantages for psychological counseling in terms of its large number of users.
To learn what both experts and netizens think about NetEase offering therapy services, hit "Read More" at the bottom of this message.