Approved without sensitive words, Toutiao and UC Toutiao frequently promote gambling apps

The agency promoted gambling apps on various platforms through "account manipulation"; Toutiao advertising staff said that gambling apps can pass the review if they do not contain sensitive words

There are links to promote gambling-related apps on Toutiao, UC Headlines and Baidu mobile clients.

As gambling apps become increasingly popular, their source of promotion is also worthy of attention.

Many players said that they saw promotional advertisements for gambling-related apps while browsing news on clients such as UC Headlines, Toutiao, and Baidu Mobile, and then downloaded them.

An investigation by the Beijing News reporter found that there are third-party agencies that specialize in non-corporate business agency, promoting gambling-related apps through "account traps" on platforms such as Toutiao and UC Toutiao.

These platforms themselves also have regulatory loopholes. An advertising sales staff member of Toutiao said that gambling and chess and card apps can be promoted, and they will pass the review as long as sensitive words such as "炸金花" do not appear.

Today's headlines recommend gambling app ads

Within three months, Jia Mou, a Hubei native, lost more than 100,000 yuan on a gambling chess and card app.

He accidentally saw this app when he was reading the news on Toutiao. He said that at that time, there was a promotional advertisement for the chess and card game app in the news recommended on the homepage, and clicking on the advertisement would automatically jump to the download page.

From the end of June to the beginning of July, the reporter found that for many consecutive days, the information recommended on the homepage of Toutiao contained a large number of advertising links promoting gambling-related apps.

Promotional advertisements for these gambling-related apps are mixed in among various news information. There is an advertisement for every five or six pieces of news information.

The reporter randomly clicked on an advertising link to enter the download page. After downloading and logging in, he registered an account and recharged to start playing the game . This app has 8 games including Landlord, Golden Flower, Hundred-person Bullfight, Birds and Beasts, and Fruit Machine.

Like other gambling-related apps, this app also has "recharge" and "withdrawal" ports at the bottom of the page. Recharge supports multiple methods such as Alipay , WeChat , agent, credit card, etc., while withdrawal only supports Alipay.

Some ads display different app names, but the promotional materials are exactly the same, and after downloading, they are all the same app.

Similar to Jia Mou, Li Jie, a graduate student at a university in Anhui, downloaded the Zajinhua App after seeing the promotional advertisement on UC Headlines. "I thought it was promoted by a regular browser , so I downloaded it for fun," he said.

Several players said that they saw promotional advertisements for gambling-related apps while browsing news on clients such as UC Headlines, Toutiao, and Baidu Mobile, and then downloaded them.

At around 10 p.m. on June 30, a Beijing News reporter opened the UC browser and found a number of promotional information for gambling-related apps mixed in with the news information in the UC headlines below the search. These included fishing, chess, and other game apps.

An industry insider said that the promotion of gambling-related apps is a non-corporate business of these website media, and can be placed on clients such as Toutiao, UC Headlines, and Baidu Mobile through third-party agents.

An investigation by the Beijing News reporter found that a large number of agency companies generally promote gambling-related apps through "account duplication", that is, using other people's advertising accounts to promote for clients who cannot engage in formal promotions.

At around 11 a.m. on June 29, at a promotion agency in Tongzhou Financial Street, upon learning that the reporter wanted to promote a gambling-related chess and card app, Zhang Wei, an employee of the company, said, "Nowadays, there is no chess and card app that does not involve gambling, but you don't have to worry, we can put it on for you."

Zhang Wei is responsible for non-enterprise business in the company. He said that the company's promotional resources mainly include UC, Baidu Mobile, Toutiao, etc., which will make players feel that large media platforms are more authoritative.

According to him, advertisements for weight loss, breast enhancement, freckle and acne removal, and kidney-tonifying and virility-enhancing drugs cannot be posted through formal channels. On platforms such as Toutiao and UC Toutiao, the company used formal qualifications to open advertising accounts, and then the company's sales staff used the accounts to find non-corporate customers. "Formal accounts should promote formal content that matches the qualifications, but they can also be used to promote 'borderline' ads, including gambling apps."

Zhang Wei said that generally, users of gambling-related apps do not have complete qualifications, so they can take advantage of some existing accounts and copy the promotional links into them. This is equivalent to using other people’s accounts for promotion, which is also called “account manipulation.” In terms of promotion, they usually choose to promote gambling apps after get off work on media platforms and at night, "no one will check after get off work."

At the same time, technically, it is possible to make a fixed-point jump, with the review page displayed during the day to pass the review of the media platform. When promoting at night, the page will no longer be the review page during the day, but will jump to the promotion page.

Zhang Wei said that there is no need to worry even if the account is blocked due to illegal promotion. They will continue the promotion with a new account, "in short, the promotion will not stop."

Zhang Wei turned on his computer and logged into a backend account of UC Headlines. He pointed at the materials in the account and said to the reporter, "It's easy for animations like these to pass, but it's not easy for real people to pass. These have all been reviewed, and they just need to be released."

These materials are all related to chess and cards, with cartoon characters or real people playing mahjong or cards, and contain text that induces downloads, "Ten thousand people are online, 24 hours a day, customer service is online to exchange at any time, real excitement."

Zhang Wei claimed that the media platforms also knew about these illegal promotions, and it would only take minutes to investigate if they wanted to. Why are there so many illegal promotions? It shows that the platforms are also short of advertising and they also want to make this money. Sometimes the platform will put some non-corporate accounts to support this task volume. In fact, it is cooperation with each other. If they want the volume, we can also promote it.

He said that each media outlet would set aside a certain amount for non-enterprise services. For example, if a website had 10 million daily active users, 5 million of them might be used for regular advertising promotion , and the remaining 5 million would be used for non-enterprise promotion.

Zhang Wei introduced that when doing promotion, customers must first recharge the advertising accounts of Toutiao and UC Toutiao, with the initial charge starting at 10,000 yuan, and charges are based on the number of user clicks . Toutiao charges 20 cents per click, and UC Headlines charges 50 cents, and these are the minimum prices. At the final settlement, the actual consumption amount will be used as the basis. For example, if a promotional advertisement is clicked 100,000 times on Toutiao, at 0.2 cents per click, Toutiao can get 20,000 yuan. The agency does not charge any additional fees, but earns rebates from Toutiao and UC Headlines. The rebates from UC Headlines are higher, at around 17%, while the rebates from Toutiao are around 8%.

Advertisers say they can pass the review if sensitive words are not included

According to the new advertising law, advertisements must not contain obscene, pornographic, gambling, superstitious and other content.

On June 28, a reporter from the Beijing News contacted an advertising salesperson from Toutiao’s advertising department. He said that as long as the promotion of gambling-related chess and card apps does not contain sensitive words such as "炸金花", it will be easy to pass the review. When submitting review materials to the advertising review department, they will be written based on the business scope on the customer's business license. The review will check whether the submitted business scope is consistent with the promotional content. If it is consistent, it will be passed regardless of what the App does.

"We submit a large number of orders every day, and it is impossible to download and review them one by one. We will not allow any sensitive words to appear," said the advertising salesperson.

Another staff member from Toutiao’s Beijing advertising department asked to first look at the App before deciding whether it would be approved. The reporter sent a gambling-related app to the person. One day later, the staff member said that the app had been reviewed by multiple reviewers and could be promoted. He asked the reporter to send him the company's business license and software copyright to open an account. "As long as the business scope of the business license includes the promoted products, it will be fine."

Several advertising sales staff from Shenzhen Lingbao Advertising Co., Ltd., the Shenzhen operation center of Toutiao, told the Beijing News reporter that gambling-related apps cannot be displayed too obviously, and also asked the reporter to send the app to them first.

A day later, the advertising staff told the reporter that the gambling-related app could run advertisements, but he reminded that some illegal content should still be hidden during the review to avoid accidents.

The advertiser claimed that gambling-related games like these have a high placement rate on Toutiao.

Another employee of the company told the reporter that more than a month ago, a gambling-related app had placed advertisements with them, and sent the reporter the link of the promotion at that time, as well as promotion data for several days.

Data shows that on the highest day, the gambling app spent nearly 100,000 yuan on Toutiao.