A large number of online water armies will be served by Douyin

E-commerce newspaper Pro

2024-05-11 15:38Posted on the official account of Guangdong E-commerce News

Douyin governs violations such as "homogeneous online water army".

The online troll activities on the platform are so rampant that Douyin can't sit still.

On May 9, the "Douyin Security Center" announced that from now on, Douyin will carry out special governance actions against violations of the "homogeneous network water army", and the platform will take measures such as content removal, account banning, and cancellation of profit-making permissions for illegal content and accounts.

Source: Douyin Security Center

In the announcement, Douyin pointed out the content and behavioral characteristics of "homogeneous online water army" violations, that is, using low-quality similar materials on the platform to produce videos in batches, and monetize them through various marketing methods after gaining traffic.

Although such accounts only publish some low-quality and homogeneous content on the surface, there are actually gangs behind them, in the name of "online earning" and "apprenticeship", large-scale inducing ordinary users to join the "team", and then continue to remotely control and direct all kinds of accounts to mass-produce "low-quality", "homogeneous", "hot" and other types of videos, which already have the characteristics of an online water army.

These behaviors affect the healthy ecology and user experience of the platform, and also breed illegal crimes. In April this year, there were 2,858 accounts that usually post low-quality content, and at the same time posted homogeneous videos, saying that their children in the third year of high school scored in the top ten because they ate some kind of health products.

The purpose of such videos is very clear, which is to induce users to buy health care products by exaggerating the effect of health care products and realize traffic monetization.

Source: Douyin Security Center

Similarly, taking the account "Shao** Tu" as an example, also in April, this account and 4,715 other accounts that have been posting low-quality content for a long time posted homogeneous content of "China's Three Strange Phenomena" at the same time, using AI-generated fake foreign "economist" images to promote and hype a liquor. In fact, these "economists" are all false, from their images to their names.

Source: Douyin Security Center

Online trolls publish false and misleading information, harming the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and disrupting the ecological order of the platform. Parents and elderly users are often one of the main groups to be deceived.

In fact, before carrying out troll behavior, relevant accounts will publish low-quality content in advance to gain traffic and accumulate followers, so the platform will focus on governing content and accounts that meet the following characteristics:

First, cheat likes. Relevant accounts often set fake inducement buttons on the screen, such as "youth mode", "close transfer", etc., to lure users to click the fake "close" multiple times to deceive the effect of liking.

Second, induce interaction. A large number of similar simple help-seeking content is published, and user comments are deceived by means of "what to do" and "online".

Third, win the traffic category of specific people. Use similar copywriting, only modify individual sentences, and win traffic to a specific group of people. For example, "Blessed are the Roosters, you are kind, hardworking...... and "The people surnamed Li are very smart"

Fourth, low-quality clips and splicing. The content is simply edited and spliced with film and television, mini game screens, or the video screen is film and television, mini games, and decompression manual, and the audio copy is an online novel.

In short, users need to improve their awareness and vigilance of online water armies, do not believe in editing "online earning" projects, listen to "commands" and publish similar and low-quality information, so as to avoid being misled and deceived.

How harmful are cyber trolls?

Of course, online trolls are definitely not just about monetizing marketing methods. They will also engage in activities such as malicious guidance, paid deletion of posts, hyping up momentum, creating false hot spots, and controlling comments.

Today's major social networking platforms and e-commerce platforms have repeatedly banned the chaos of disguising themselves as ordinary netizens and consumers to publish bad information to seek profits.

For example, recently, the Daqing Municipal Public Security Bureau cracked a criminal case of "Internet water army". After interrogation, since June 2023, Li has teamed up with others to act as an online water army, "following, forwarding, liking, and commenting" on multiple social platform accounts and published content, and illegally profited more than 20,000 yuan. At present, Li has been taken criminal compulsory measures in accordance with the law.

Source: CCTV News

On April 14, in order to attract attention and win traffic, a Kaifeng netizen Wang posted false information on the short video platform about not wanting lettuce in a certain place, causing a large number of people who did not know the truth to be misled and went to dig lettuce, bringing unnecessary trouble to the local area. Immediately, the Kaifeng public security organs imposed an administrative punishment on Wang.

These are just small fights, the amount involved is not large, and the harm is within a controllable range for the time being. However, on e-commerce platforms, online trolls have formed a complete industrial chain. Swiping orders, controlling reviews, and false praise make products become "hot models" in the live broadcast room, guiding consumers to rush to buy, and causing damage to normal market competition and consumer rights and interests.

In November last year, the police in Bozhou, Anhui Province, smashed a criminal gang that provided false propaganda services for live streaming. When the merchant brings goods in the live broadcast room, a "brusher" operates 30 accounts at the same time, playing multiple buyer roles and interacting with the anchor. At this time, you will find that in a live broadcast room of 30 people, 28 people are water army.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with interaction, the key is that these reviews are tendentious, exaggerate the effect of the product, shoddy, mislead consumers, and even the products promoted by these "online trolls" lack relevant permissions.

This not only harms the rights and interests of consumers, but also hinders the healthy development of the live broadcast e-commerce industry. The algorithm rules of e-commerce platforms generally regard the number of positive reviews and the number of orders as important factors in product exposure and ranking.

When more and more unscrupulous merchants hire "online water army" to create false transactions and evaluations, high-quality products are buried because of the lack of real promotion, and low-quality products gain a lot of exposure through false publicity.

Bad money drives out good money, and the platform is full of fake transactions and reviews, which will inevitably lead to user loss and market share loss.

The cyber trolls have been banned repeatedly, naturally because they have made a lot of profits. Taking the above-mentioned Anhui Bozhou police uncovered the cyber water army criminal gang as an example, according to the police, in just 10 months, the gang illegally made more than 200 yuan.

A "brusher" may earn a commission of 1 to 3 yuan per order, and the monthly income of high performance exceeds 50,000 yuan. Last year, the public security organs investigated and handled more than 800 cases related to "cyber trolls", and the amount involved reached more than 8 billion yuan.

The platform is still a daunting task

In order to gain more traffic, attention or benefits, some businesses, individuals or organizations choose to hire online trolls to create false public opinion, swipe orders, control reviews, etc. This profit-driven drive has made the problem of cyber trolls more serious.

In order to deal with such problems, major platforms continue to increase the governance of online trolls. In April this year, Douyin has issued an announcement to focus on cracking down on three types of water army behaviors: "selling accounts", "selling good reviews", and "malicious control and commenting".

Previously, the public security organs in Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai, together with large Internet platforms such as Sina Weibo, Kuaishou, Tencent, and Xiaohongshu, jointly issued a proposal on "Rejecting Online Rumors and Clearing the Online Environment", calling on platforms and content producers to jointly maintain online order.

However, by disguising themselves as ordinary consumers or netizens, they will constantly change their strategies, methods and tools, which are characterized by complexity, concealment and change. Therefore, it is a long-term and arduous task to govern the online trolls on e-commerce platforms.

Although the mainland has promulgated a series of laws and regulations regulating the Internet market and online behavior, there are still some legal loopholes and ambiguities in the governance of cyber trolls, which allow lawbreakers to take advantage of them.

In this process, e-commerce platforms should take on the important task of using big data, artificial intelligence and other technical means to monitor and analyze the activities of online trolls, and discover the illegal acts of online trolls in a timely manner.

In short, the governance of online trolls requires long-term and sustained efforts and investment from e-commerce platforms.

Author | Zhou Wenjun

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