CCTV exposes the industry chain of online trolls: one person can control 600 mobile phones, with clear price tags for forwarding, commenting and liking

Recently, the entry #One person controls 600 mobile phones to continuously forward, comment and like# has become a hot search on Weibo, attracting widespread attention from the society. CCTV has uncovered the industry chain of online water army popularity-boosting, unveiling the mystery of this gray industry. On a certain platform, various services for boosting popularity are openly sold, with orders such as "ultra-fast comment and like" and "ultra-fast manual increase of followers" covering almost all social networking platforms.

After searching for "increase clicks" on an e-commerce platform, CCTV reporters found a large number of related businesses. After further communication, the business sent a quotation sheet with clear prices for fans, likes, plays, reposts, favorites, and comments. For example, 8 yuan can buy 1,000 plays, 23 yuan for 100 favorites, etc.

It is understood that in order to reduce costs, most of the mobile phones used by the brushers are second-hand mobile phones. When operating, they only need to log in to their accounts on these mobile phones, and then use the group control software to control hundreds of mobile phones to perform brushing operations.

Due to high efficiency and low cost, the price of such fake orders is extremely low. These online water armies have formed a complete industrial chain. After the buyer places an order, the intermediary takes the order and dispatches it to the professional water army team. The brushers complete the task to obtain illegal profits, and the relevant personnel then share the profits in proportion.

Cybersecurity experts point out that the fake traffic created by online trolls is extremely harmful.

In the short term, it seriously infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and ordinary netizens. When consumers browse online information and choose goods or services, they are often misled by false high popularity and good reviews and make wrong decisions.

From a long-term perspective, this kind of fake traffic will inevitably backfire on merchants and platforms. If merchants rely on fake traffic, they may ignore the real quality improvement of their products or services. Once they are discovered by consumers, they will lose their reputation and market share. If the platform turns a blind eye to the phenomenon of fake traffic, it will gradually lose the trust of users and lead to the decline of the platform.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.