For 760 yuan, the "Navy Army" can fry a false news into 540 million views
The 100-billion-level gray and black industry chain behind the inflated flow of "number maintenance control reviews"
However, in just a few hours, the information posted by the parent Liu on Weibo has been reposted a million times and received 540 million readings. It has been posted on Weibo hot searches, and the entry reads "corporal punishment of children with asthma in a Guangzhou primary school Rescue caused by vomiting blood".
The irritating words and several photos of "blood clothes" are shocking.
Public opinion exploded quickly, directing the spearhead at the school and teachers involved.
However, in less than a day, the event reversed dramatically.
The police investigation found that this hot information was fabricated by Liu.
False information has been on the hot search and gained huge attention, which originated from the network push operation that only cost 760 yuan.
Recently, the People's Court of Baiyun District, Guangzhou City pronounced a verdict on this case of spreading false information on the Internet, and both Liu and the Internet promoter were severely punished by law.
Behind the case, the gray and black industrial chain that relied on the "keeping account control and evaluation" to inflated the flow has surfaced.
The seemingly simple-to-operate, fake traffic "business" with small troubles has an overall scale of hundreds of billions, spreading across all major Internet platforms.
From pageviews, likes to transactions, everything can be "swiped", destroying the Internet ecology and social economic order.
760 yuan to buy "Navy" to create a public opinion storm
Liu, the parent of a student at Fangyuan Experimental Primary School in Guangzhou, resents the teacher because his daughter was fined for running at the school.
In May 2020, she faked a "blood suit" with lotion and eye shadow, took pictures and posted them on Weibo, falsely claiming that her daughter had asthma and was punished by the teacher to vomit blood for rescue.
Despite its explosive content and sharp wording, this Weibo is still submerged in the massive amount of information on the Internet and has not caused much splash.
Not reconciled, Liu searched the Internet and found the network promoter Ma.
Liu paid a total of 760 yuan to Ma to expand the influence of the Weibo, 100 yuan for 10,000 reposts, 160 yuan for 20,000 likes, and 500 yuan for 100,000 followers.
After receiving the "task", Ma posted a link to Liu's Weibo on an online platform called "community self-service ordering", and the platform purchased the platform to purchase reviews, reads, and post false comments. Spent 270 yuan.
In just a few hours, Liu's Weibo content was reposted and commented in large numbers until it was posted on Weibo hot search.
Public opinion was infuriated, and the teacher involved was searched for "human flesh" and suffered online violence.
Ma started to feel a little uncomfortable, and contacted Liu on WeChat to request the deletion of the chat record, but the other party has been investigated by the police and there is no response.
According to the investigation by the public security organs, Liu's related Weibo has been reposted more than 1.4 million times, commented more than 465,000 times, and read 540 million times.
For spreading false information, Guangzhou Baiyun District People’s Court sentenced the defendant Liu to the crime of provoking quarrels and sentenced him to one year and six months’ imprisonment, with two years’ probation; Ma and the online platform operator of “so-and-so community self-service order” Chen was sentenced to six months' imprisonment by the court for the crime of creating disturbances.
According to Gu Yuexiong, a police officer from the Internet Police Detachment of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, who investigated the case, Chen’s "Mou and So Self-Ordering Community" network platform uses API interface programs to connect with other previous websites and can automatically complete the increase of users. Fans, likes and other needs.
According to preliminary statistics, the platform involved more than 20 million yuan in turnover.
"This type of platform has low technical content. Register a shell company, a few computers, and a few mobile phones, download a set of code-connecting platforms, and place an order with one click to increase the number of online articles, likes, and false comments. Etc., and the threshold is low, and the charge is not high. Take Weibo as an example, the price of reposting blog posts is about RMB 70/10,000 times, the price of likes is about RMB 30/10,000 times, and the price of comments is about RMB 65/10,000." Gu Yue Xiong said.
The platform not only has never met with customers, but also has almost no review mechanism for scrambled content.
"I don't know Ma at all, and I don't even know the content of this Weibo." Chen, the operator of the platform, said during the trial. "This kind of order takes hundreds of thousands of orders a year, so I can't read it. Here, we will spot check orders on the website every day. We don’t tweet tweets that involve politics, pornography, or violence. The authenticity of other content is difficult to verify."
Ma also stated that he had not reviewed the authenticity of Weibo content, and when he realized that it was false information, he could no longer prevent Internet influencers and netizens from forwarding comments.
User clicks on the platform and earns a dime
The Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter's investigation found that a large number of illegal network platforms that produced false traffic lurked behind the case, and a gray and black industrial chain with a scale of 100 billion yuan has been formed.
A search for "Like Platforms" on Baidu showed that there are 24 million links, and all major online platforms can brush high traffic.
There are three specific operations:
The first is to use "wangzhuan" apps to collect idle user traffic.
For example, on apps such as "Love Help" and "Hand Earn Customers", users can re-evaluate likes according to the requirements, and they can get a certain amount of rewards, complete the brushing business, and earn the difference.
"This kind of operation has a low barrier to entry and makes money fast.'You can make money while lying at home', so it attracts a lot of users who have plenty of time." Gu Yuexiong said, participants wrote comments in accordance with the "script" routine provided by the platform, and then The screenshots were sent to the so-called "mentor" for comment, and those who did not meet the requirements would be rewritten.
The good and bad reviews of some products are mostly from these platforms.
The second is to use technology to simulate manual operations and conduct batch re-comment. The more common is group control software.
In September 2020, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court heard an unfair competition dispute over a group control software that specifically targeted WeChat platform traffic. The group control software involved was mainly controlled by a computer to control real mobile phones for batch operation. A WeChat group control software can At the same time, the group control 120 WeChat accounts are operated online for likes and comments, thereby charging the enterprise's traffic marketing promotion fee. The group control software customers often need to promote commercial advertisements, official account articles, etc.
"In recent years, the form of brush flow has been continuously refurbished. It has been upgraded from the early manual brush to the machine brush, and the single form has also become a comprehensive form." said Wan Yong, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School.
The third is to concoct internet "bursts" to attract fans' attention.
"Fans are king, buy a car and buy a house" "Successfully only if you keep adding fans, fans, and fans will you have money and'true love'"... In November 2020, the Guangzhou police responded to an "Internet Water Army" gang Launched the net retraction operation, and banners like this can be seen everywhere in the gang's den.
According to the police handling the case, the gang involved has been operating under the name "Guangzhou XX Cultural Communication Co., Ltd." since April 2020. In order to "obtain fans" and earn "traffic masters" advertising costs, they used self-media to concoct internet "explosives" ", releasing a lot of rumors and information, disrupting social order.
"In the Internet economy, traffic is king. The purpose of these shell companies' "keeping accounts" is to earn traffic and charge advertising fees. Every time a user clicks, the company can earn a dime. But most of the content they publish is sensational False information." Gu Yuexiong said.
"Small business" hides "big risks"
Interviewees believe that behaviors such as concocting false traffic and manipulating public opinion focus can easily mutate into illegal tools that disrupt the Internet ecology and disrupt social and economic order, triggering many social risks.
The reporter saw on "a community self-service ordering platform", "Quick hand swipe double click 1 yuan 100", users only need to select the platform of the required traffic task, the amount of likes and attention needed to be achieved on the platform, and then fill in You can place an order with your own link.
The reporter chose 2.88 yuan to swipe 50 short videos and double-clicked, and the "a community self-service ordering platform" popped up: In order to circumvent supervision, short videos need to be posted 20 minutes after the task is generated.
After 3 minutes, the reporter saw that the short video had been liked by more than 50 unfamiliar accounts.
"If the number of likes on all short videos on the platform ranks in the top ten on that day, they may be pushed to the hot search list, and the exposure will increase exponentially. At this time, there is no need to manipulate the likes, and they will also get social attention." A Guangzhou family The head of the operation department of the media company said.
Recently, the People's Court of Changning District in Shanghai issued a verdict on a case of providing programs for intrusion and illegal control of computer information systems.
The defendant Yao developed a "live streaming artifact" that could inflate the traffic in the live streaming room of an e-commerce platform store.
When merchants "plug in" this software, there will be "zombie fans" enthusiastically interacting with the anchor, creating a false lively scene, allowing some people who don't know the truth to follow the trend.
In addition, in recent years, courts in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places heard multiple cases involving unfair competition on the Internet, showing that several major Internet companies are deeply disturbed and filed lawsuits against group control software companies that create false traffic.
Zhong Xiaokai, a judge of the Intellectual Property Court of the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, who heard Tencent’s case against group control software, said that group control software used improper means to grab users’ attention, disrupt the market order of fair competition, and interfere with society’s judgment on the Internet traffic economy.
According to Zhong Xiaokai, some real users voluntarily provide accounts for use by gangs to earn fees, and some criminals will leave "backdoors" in user accounts in order to subsequently "manipulate" user accounts.
In this way, software developers can steal users’ personal information, friend information and other privacy, and may also cause fraud and other problems, causing major privacy leaks and network security incidents.
Rule of law, diversified governance of network black and gray assets
Wan Yong believes that from a legal perspective, the black and gray industry chain of false network traffic may violate a number of laws and regulations based on different facts and the nature of the behavior, including the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the E-commerce Law.
In addition, if the act of destroying the computer information system is carried out in order to obtain the false traffic, it may fall into the "crime of destroying the computer information system" stipulated in Article 286 of the Criminal Law.
However, there are still many practical difficulties in combating false traffic and the gray and black industry chain.
Ou Wei'an, a professor at the Law School of Guangzhou University, said that laws related to related fields are relatively fragmented, especially in the field of criminal law, where there are certain disputes about the determination of related acts.
Wan Yong also said that as more and more Internet black and gray industries rent overseas cloud servers or use foreign mobile phone numbers, or even hire foreign personnel to engage in related illegal activities, it is difficult to investigate and obtain evidence at the crackdown level.
The person in charge of the relevant Internet platform said that although the "reporting account control" and the resulting false traffic have been cracked down, the group control system is also updating and iterating in the confrontation.
At present, the latest group control system is simulating human behavior, which is irregular, irregular, and irregular, which brings certain difficulties to prevention and control.
Legal professionals suggest that a multi-pronged approach from legislative, administrative, judicial, and social governance levels should crack down on the living space of the traffic black and gray industry, and further improve the level of rule of law in the governance of network black and gray industries.
Wan Yong said that in response to the new difficult problems in judicial practice, the legal governance system is improved by issuing guiding cases, issuing relevant judicial interpretations in a timely manner, and revising laws.
Our reporter Mao Yizhu, Hu Linguo, Mao Xin