From the People’s Daily app.
This is Story in the Story.
Mafengwo, a top user-generated travel platform in China, was thrown into the spotlight after a story claiming the site used fake reviews in an attempt to increase the company’s influence, improve its image and lure investors.
Although Mafengwo denied the allegations and said the reviews in question accounted for only 3 percent of the platform’s content, it was still enough to shed light on a clandestine service that has plagued e-commerce platforms for years: click farms.
As online consumers rely on reviews, ratings and sales records to influence purchasing decisions, businesses have been utilizing click farms to increase their online presence.
The business practice has given rise to a niche industry that generates over 1 billion yuan annually.
Today’s Story in the Story looks at “click farms” and how e-commerce platforms and entertainment studios use them to generate attention and influence online purchasing, and how China is starting to crack down on their presence.
Chen Gang, CEO of Chinese travel services and social networking platform Mafengwo, speaks at the BOAO Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province in March 2017. Mafengwo is riddled with fake reviews. (Photo: VCG)
Due to lax restrictions and low costs, click farms have been able to flourish in China.
It has been estimated that over 20 million people, mainly students, work within this clandestine sector.
Chen Wan, who opened a sushi restaurant in Shanghai last year, said that after she posted her restaurant on the customer review platform dianping.com, she received calls from "marketing companies" offering to help generate positive reviews of her restaurant.
"Although I knew it wasn’t right, I paid 5,000 yuan ($717) to boost my ratings so that the restaurant's Dianping page would seem more appealing," she confessed.
On milioo.com, anyone can sign up to be a fake reviewer as long as they register. They offer tools like fake tracking numbers that can bypass algorithms designed to block fraudulent reviews on major shopping sites.
To generate a fake review one must first place an order, then make an advance payment, and afterwards write a glowing review. After the platform’s owner verifies the task has been completed and the review is published, the business in question will refund the payment and offer anywhere from 1 to 5 yuan to the person who wrote the review.
Click farms have moved into the entertainment industry, as production companies rely heavily on social media ratings to generate greater buzz for new releases.
A Chinese tourist poses in front of the Palace of Versailles in October 2014. China has tightened law-enforcement to protect public from being fooled by fake reviews of hotels, restaurants, products and online videos. (Photo: VCG)
The television drama “Eternal Love” gained 30 billion hits last year, and an average-quality online drama can easily attract at least several billion views on streaming platforms.
As one studio explained, fake hits from computers are easily picked up by video streaming platforms, which makes them cheaper. Meanwhile, hits generated by actual people are "real" and therefore more expensive.
Costs range between 5,000 to over 100,000 yuan, depending on the difficulty and number of reviews each project requires.
"Long reviews, short reviews, discussions in online forums, and “likes” all have different price tags. Typically, one review costs 40 yuan, a chat room discussion is 40 yuan, and “likes” are 2 yuan apiece,” the company explained.
Last year, the Yuhang District People's Court of Hangzhou ruled against Li Hanyu who made over 300,000 yuan from his click farm.
Li was sentenced to almost six years in jail and slapped with a fine just under 1 million yuan. It was a landmark ruling as it marked the first time a click farm had been officially recognized as illegal.
The judge who handed down the ruling, Yu Xiaoting, said, “The online shopping environment needs to be cleaned up. Faking sales and reviews will not only mislead consumers, but will create transaction risks. If we fail to establish a healthy, normal online order, it will not only affect consumers but the entire online economy.”
(Produced by Nancy Yan Xu, Lance Crayon, Brian Lowe, Elaine Yue Lin and Da Hang. Music by: bensound.com. Text from Global Times.)