18 yuan for 100,000 likes, the popularity of the live broadcast room depends entirely on brushing

This article revolves around the term "data brushing", and elaborates on the current situation of "data brushing", the complete industrial chain behind the Internet army, and the reasons for data falsification on Internet platforms. It is recommended for those who want to learn more about "data brushing" in the Internet era.

The term "data brushing" appeared with the e-commerce platform. Now, this unhealthy trend has spread to short video and live broadcast platforms. In 2023, CCTV's 3.15 Gala exposed the dark side behind the popular live broadcast room: a mobile phone controlled 20,000 water armies, and the popularity, playback volume, likes, comments and other data of the live broadcast room were all brushed.

Usually, the top streamers in the live streaming room have millions of viewers, and the popularity of the live streaming room of the mid-level streamers is between 10,000 and 100,000. However, judging from the exposure of 315, these data may be somewhat exaggerated. At present, advertisements and products that increase likes and popularity have been removed from e-commerce platforms in large quantities, but some merchants still choose to build their own websites, apps and WeChat groups to conduct transactions in private domains. In fact, the use of online trolls to increase the number of likes and comments has become a "standard feature" in many industries.

The brands and anchors who choose to inflate traffic have clear purposes. One is to create an atmosphere to induce users to follow suit and place orders, and the other is to falsify data in order to give an explanation to the financial backers behind them. Gradually, the industry has gradually formed a bad trend of "if I don't inflate, others will do so." The water army service providers have made a lot of money by relying on illegal activities, and the platform has turned a blind eye to the "false prosperity" data, and only the users have been cut off.

The business of brushing traffic has formed a complete industry chain. Some practitioners said, "If you don't have the resources to brush traffic, it means you are not deep enough in the industry." The exposure of 3.15 sounded the alarm for the chaos of water army. In the future, whether the short video live broadcast industry and the game industry can further regulate their development, platform governance will be the key.

01 “Likes, comments, popularity, all can be increased”

According to CCTV's 3.15 Gala, there are platforms that sell live broadcast room water army online to increase the popularity, playback volume, likes, comments and other data of the live broadcast room, and self-service orders can be placed 24 hours a day. The purpose of using water army is to make users who are unaware of the situation be driven by the lively atmosphere under the atmosphere of water army, impulsively follow the trend, and pay money to place orders. In fact, the use of water army is already a semi-open secret in the live broadcast industry. Wang Hai, a "counterfeiter", once said that many of the active fans in a certain live broadcast room of a big anchor are fake, and there is also the phenomenon of brushing orders.

However, with the strengthening of supervision, the whereabouts of these water armies have become more and more secretive. Kaibo Finance searched for keywords such as "TikTok, Kuaishou live broadcast likes/hot" on Taobao, Xianyu, and QQ, and found that there are no particularly obvious advertisements at present. Searching with obscure keywords such as "live broadcast watch" can also find related product links . Most merchants indicate that they provide services such as live broadcast data optimization, have more than ten years of experience, and can provide invoices.

However, these links do not have product details pages, only prices. When Kaibo Finance asked "Is there a specific quote for brushing reviews in the live broadcast room?", the customer service replied "Because it is quite sensitive now, please contact customer service V to communicate, and come here to pay when it is appropriate."

Xu Yang, a merchant who has live streaming business on Taobao and Douyin, told Kaibo Finance that most merchants who provide water army services have switched to private domain operations, and some have even developed their own websites and apps, and set up external blocking functions , requiring registration to place orders independently. The water army quotations on the market are now similar.

During the 3.15 Gala, a staff member introduced that "100 people online for one hour on the live broadcast cost 49 yuan, 100,000 likes cost 18 yuan, and 30 comments cost 59 yuan". Xuyang said that as more and more people enter the venue, the price has dropped. Previously, the price of 100 people on the live broadcast list (real people) could reach about 220 yuan, and non-real people cost about 80 yuan. In addition to manipulating the popularity, likes and comments of the live broadcast room, the likes, comments, transfers, collections and playbacks of short videos can also be faked , and the price ranges from a few yuan to several hundred yuan.

In a merchant's latest Douyin price list sent by Xuyang, the price for every 1,000 high-quality real-person fans is 239.4 yuan, the price for every 50 real-person likes is 2.74 yuan, the price for 20 high-quality real-person comments is 17.1 yuan, the price for 1,000 video views is 0.27 yuan, the price for 100 work forwardings is 10.45 yuan, and the price for 20 video collections is 4.69 yuan. The quantity can be stacked infinitely, and the higher the price of the product, the faster the payment will generally be received.

In February of this year, a service provider advertised in a WeChat group that the demand for water armies in multiple industries is increasing. In multiple online water army order-taking groups, there is a huge demand for water armies every day. There are even some more bizarre demands, such as providing water armies for some game platforms to increase the popularity of the games and attract more players to spend money on recharges.

The 3.15 Gala revealed that games such as Candy League, Beibei Fishing, Playing Chess, and Doudizhu all purchased the services of Internet trolls. Some people even hired Internet trolls to go to the live broadcast rooms of competitors to automatically file complaints or even smear campaigns. "Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. Where there is data, there are Internet trolls. A lot of the data you see can be faked ."

Xu Yang said. In fact, Kuaishou and Douyin each have their own official traffic promotion tools, namely Fentiao and DOU+. After paying, anchors and MCN agencies can promote the live broadcast room and improve relevant data. Compared with the numerous online water army companies on the market, the price is higher. The official live broadcast platform usually does not authorize third-party companies to brush orders, and has formulated relevant rules to severely crack down on the water army's brushing behavior.

However, some insiders believe that online water armies have objectively promoted the "prosperity" of live broadcast platform data, and the platform's attitude will be more ambiguous for a certain period of time.

Li Sheng, chief lawyer at Beijing Zhipu Law Firm, told Kaibo Finance that the inducing methods of online water army, such as brushing the volume and controlling the comments, illegal promotion, fabricating and displaying false information, etc., violate the "Consumer Rights Protection Law" from the perspective of civil law, conceal the true situation of products or services, and infringe on consumers' rights to compare, identify and choose. If paid screen swiping and hype deliberately create online hot spots, constitute improper social public opinion, fraud, etc., it will violate the "Public Security Administration Punishment Law" at the least, and violate the criminal law in serious cases, and be suspected of provoking trouble and fraud.

02 The interest chain behind the water army: group control software, buying and selling ID cards, recruiting agents

So, how do these companies control a large number of "real" water armies? According to the exposure of CCTV's 3.15 Gala, some live broadcast companies control a large number of water armies through group control systems . According to the staff, the so-called group control system is to use one computer to control 100 mobile phones at the same time, pretending to be 100 real users to act as water armies. "10 computers means 1,000 water armies, and 100 computers means 10,000 water armies. Many live broadcast companies will use such group control systems. Some big anchors can spend hundreds of millions of yuan to build a computer room, and the computer room is very large." said Manager Lin, a group control software seller.

The cloud control system launched by Jiaxing Yuhe Culture Media Co., Ltd. is more simple and rough to operate. One mobile phone can control 200 to 20,000 mobile phones at the same time to act as water army .

In order to make the water army look more like real users, when entering the live broadcast room, Yuhe Company’s cloud control system can also set batches, entry time, and different speech content in advance.

After having the equipment, if the water army wants to enter the live broadcast room and game app, they first need to register as users of these platforms. How do thousands of water army accounts successfully register?

Manager Zhou of Jiaxing Yuhe Culture Media Co., Ltd. mentioned that his company used the IoT card, which can be used to register an account on the short video platform. According to Baidu Encyclopedia, the IoT card is a card provided by operators to IoT service companies for the networking of smart terminal devices. It is only sold in bulk to corporate users and is widely used in shared bicycles, mobile payments, vending machines and other fields, not for individual users.

The special feature of “no real-name authentication required” makes IoT cards a new tool for online fraud. Manager Zhou of Yarunjin Network Technology Co., Ltd. mentioned that the company imported a large amount of resident ID card information into the database through the cloud control system. Before the water army account enters the game, the system will automatically enter the name and ID number, and the ID number is obtained through gray channels. With batch registration of accounts and convenient operations, the water army industry has become more unscrupulous. In order to better control profit costs, the brushing companies will also buy second-hand inventory machines at extremely low prices to use as brushing tools.

Cao Wei, senior partner of Beijing Zhongyin (Nanjing) Law Firm, said that buying and selling ID cards and related personal information is illegal . The Criminal Law stipulates that if a person violates relevant national regulations and sells or provides citizens' personal information to others, if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall be fined or fined alone; if the circumstances are particularly serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined. If a person violates relevant national regulations and sells or provides citizens' personal information obtained in the course of performing duties or providing services to others, he shall be punished more severely in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.

Li Sheng added that the crime of buying and selling resident identity documents is a joint crime, that is, the law punishes not only the seller but also the buyer, so the crime applies to both buyers and sellers . Buyers buying identity documents also constitute illegal acquisition of citizens' personal information, and therefore are also suspected of violating citizens' personal information. In addition to directly selling water army services for profit, "recruiting agents" is also one of the profit-making businesses of these institutions, which is to develop downstream agent salesmen.

According to Kaibo Finance, you only need to pay an entry fee to become an agent salesperson, and you can earn about 10%-15% commission for each order. In addition, the agent salesperson can set the price by himself, and after paying the commission, the remaining price difference belongs to him. He can also continue to attract salespeople to achieve more profits.

03 Who is promoting the online water army?

Why does data falsification on Internet platforms continue despite repeated bans and why the ecosystem of Internet water armies continues to thrive?

In recent years, the online water army industry has become increasingly large, which is related to the wild growth of the live broadcast e-commerce industry. Tianyancha data shows that there are nearly 5,500 live broadcast e-commerce related companies in my country. Among the companies engaged in live broadcast e-commerce related businesses, 0.85% of the related companies have had legal proceedings, 5.90% of the related companies have had business anomalies, and 0.34% of the related companies have been administratively punished.

Secondly, data fraud exists in the field of live e-commerce. Maizi, an industry insider of live e-commerce, concluded that for bloggers, fake traffic can allow them to get higher market premiums, and beautiful data can satisfy brands. For media, good data can give a good explanation to brands. For platforms, the false prosperity of platform traffic can help them obtain higher financing in the investment market. Hiring water armies requires costs, and there is no end to such vicious competition.

"In fact, most brands now spend money to buy face. From the perspective of cost saving, I think most people are unwilling to inflate. If everyone does not inflate, they can actually focus more on building the brand." Maizi said. He further pointed out that the anchors who signed MCNs would inflate more seriously , on the one hand because they are highly commercialized and have strict requirements for profitability. On the other hand, commercialization itself is a consumption of fans. If you want to make up for this gradually declining trust, you still have to rely on high-investment marketing and inflate to bring beautiful data.

Xu Yang said that it is inevitable that the volume increase is caused by the overall chaos in the industry. If other MCN agencies and anchors increase the volume but you don't, the data gap will be very large. In addition, some brands have high expectations for the communication and sales effects, or the contract between buyers and sellers requires a higher target to be achieved. In order to achieve the target, some anchors and agents choose to cheat.

Cao Wei pointed out that the reason why online water armies are rampant despite repeated bans is that, objectively speaking, water armies are somewhat concealed, and the core reason is that the relevant entities can make profits, and the benefits are disproportionate to the risks, that is, the possibility of being discovered or the severity of being punished is disproportionate to the profits. Furthermore, some platforms lack a sense of responsibility and fail to fulfill the necessary audit, supervision, and prevention obligations. Some platforms even knowingly condone fake water armies in order to pursue profits.

It can be seen that in the face of interests, businesses that purchase water army services and live broadcast platforms have to some extent encouraged online water armies. " Whoever is profiting is encouraging online water armies. Bad businesses and platforms that lack self-discipline should reflect on themselves ."

Li Sheng pointed out incisively. "The world has suffered from the water army for a long time!" Data fraud and false propaganda are regarded as the two major cancers of the live broadcast industry and even the entire marketing industry, and they should be eradicated. Many industry insiders pointed out that in fact, if the platform wants to really ban the behavior of brushing, it is not technically difficult, but there is a powerful industrial chain behind it, and the platform itself is the beneficiary, including advertisers and agency companies, who are all "grasshoppers on the same rope."

Driven by profit and tempting by profit, the chaos of online trolls exposed by the 3.15 Gala did not happen overnight. Li Sheng suggested that the industry needs self-discipline and the establishment of an effective regulatory mechanism, as well as the courage to take drastic measures , in order to usher in the long-term healthy development of the industry. He hoped that through this exposure, consumers would become more rational, merchants and platforms would become more self-disciplined, and regulatory agencies would gradually strengthen legislation and law enforcement.

At the request of the interviewees, Xuyang and Maizi are pseudonyms in this article.

Source: WeChat public account "Kaiboluo Finance (ID: kaiboluocaijing)"