Watch a short video every 3 minutes? Miaopai is just a game that inflates the number of views by 500 times

Miaopai is really brave

On September 22, the cost of swiping WeChat public accounts skyrocketed, with 1 yuan buying only 10 clicks. It is said that this is because the platform has increased its efforts to block WeChat accounts that swiped WeChat accounts. This cat-and-mouse game between the platform and the self-media is neither the beginning nor the end. But few people would think that if the platform itself swiped the number of views crazily, who can punish them?

For example, Miaopai.

On November 3, Miaopai released the short video playback rankings for October, including seven rankings: original creators ranking, popular ranking, influence ranking, food ranking, fashion ranking, MCN agency ranking, and Sichuan and Chongqing author original ranking. Miaopai specifically stated that the data on the rankings has excluded the behavior of brushing.

Then, we saw that the top ten of the seven categories of the list released by Miaopai, a total of 70 short video accounts, had a total of nearly 23.3 billion views in a single month. This number is quite astonishing. For the short video industry, which is in a fierce competition, Miaopai's courage to publish such a list is quite commendable.

But is this true? Let's do some calculations.

According to the short video industry report for the first half of 2017 released by Cheetah Lab (formerly Cheetah Global Think Tank), among the top 30 short video platforms, Miaopai ranked 15th, with a weekly active penetration rate of 0.1857%. The average number of openings per person per week was 9. The total weekly active penetration rate of the top 30 short video platforms was 34.47%.

According to the 40th "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" released by the China Internet Information Center, as of June 2017, the total number of mobile Internet users in China was 724 million, the number of mobile video users was 525 million, and the number of mobile live broadcast users was 343 million. There is no separate statistics on the number of short video users, but it can be inferred that the number of short video users should be similar to that of mobile live broadcast users, about 340 million, and the total number is definitely less than 525 million.

In this way, we can roughly calculate that the total weekly penetration rate of the top 30 short video platforms is 34.47%. Based on the total number of 724 million mobile Internet users, the total number of people who watch the top 30 short video platforms each week is 250 million. Miaopai's weekly active penetration rate is 0.1857%, and the number of people who open the Miaopai platform each week is about 1.35 million. The average number of times Miaopai is opened per person per week is 9 times. The monthly playback volume of the top ten in the seven categories of Miaopai in October was 23.3 billion times, and the average weekly playback volume was 5.4 billion times. Therefore, the weekly playback volume per person is 4,000 times, which is hundreds of times the amount of water injection.

Looking more closely, according to Miaopai's playback data, among the users who open Miaopai, each person plays short videos up to 444 times each time they open Miaopai. These die-hard users watch a short video every three minutes or more, even if they don't sleep, eat, or go to the bathroom.

Are they humans or robots who are so obsessed with Miaopai? What's even funnier is that this is only the playback of the top ten short videos in the seven categories. Considering the above sleepless users, they also have to watch videos after the top ten in the seven categories, as well as other types of short videos that are not in these seven categories. If the Miaopai data is true, these more than one million hardcore users are likely to die from overwork in front of their mobile phone screens.

Inflated traffic has become an epidemic

A few days ago, the news that iQiyi sued a Hangzhou-based video-brushing company for 5 million yuan caused a stir in the video industry. An executive of a company in the industry joked in his WeChat Moments, saying, "Isn't this just the thief crying thief?"

Since the birth of the Internet video platform, the gene of inflating the number of views has been oozing out of its pores every second. This is no longer an unspoken rule in the industry, but has become an open scam known to all Chinese netizens. Some new dramas in 2017, such as "Ode to Joy 2", have a total online broadcast volume of about 25.2 billion, "In the Name of the People" has a broadcast volume of about 30.9 billion, and "Princess Agents" has exceeded 40 billion. Each popular drama has set off a great leap forward in inflating the number of views.

This puts a lot of pressure on Chinese netizens. Each of us has watched "Princess Agents" 60 times, "In the Name of the People" more than 40 times, and "Ode to Joy 2" more than 30 times... Who will still build socialism? Regardless of whether people from friendly countries are inexplicably surprised, if this continues, the country will no longer be a country.

The more promising the short video and content industries are, the more unable the platforms are to curb the urge to “actively increase traffic”.

The purpose of inflating the volume is to reassure the restless capitalists so that they agree to inflate bubbles for the next round of financing; secondly, it can deceive advertisers and earn more advertising fees; thirdly, it can use bigger bubbles to suppress the bubbles of other platforms, after all, everyone is competing for food with each other; fourthly, the exaggerated volume of playbacks can lure more short video content producers to join the platform and work for free; fifthly, it can create the illusion that short videos are very popular and induce users to watch more sticky content.

Of course, the fact that platforms are actively "brushing up" the volume does not mean that all short video content producers can benefit from it. For content producers who have capital connections and are given key support, short video platforms will directly change the background data and allow anyone to be on the list. Another more covert method is to give certain accounts a certain weighted ratio to inflate their playback volume.

Even the platforms that are trying their best to improve their KPIs say that there is nothing they cannot do. The most common method of collective fraud is click counting fraud, where one click counts, one refresh counts, and even one pause counts. For the content supported by short video platforms, the playback data can be almost arbitrary and allocated on demand.

There is no need for those accounts that are not the focus of support to feel sad or give up on themselves. After all, the platform can still indulge them to create a false prosperity by removing the technical barriers to inflating the volume. Cats and mice are one family, snakes and rats are in the same nest, and we are all fine. A simple search shows that the cost of inflating the volume of Miaopai is shockingly low:  

Not only can the number of views be inflated, but also the number of fans. In order to make it look more authentic, the number of likes and comments can also be inflated, and the cost is low:

For short video producers, views and fans are almost their life, so they have a greater motivation to increase views, while Miaopai and other short video producers are happy to see content producers increase views.

Short video producers usually use third-party companies to increase the number of views. These companies use fixed IP addresses and fixed machines to directly increase the playback interface, and immediately exit after playing for a few seconds. The ability of short video platforms to identify IP addresses is one of the core technologies to combat the increase in views. The companies will find loopholes in the statistical data rules of the platform background, and they will quickly break through them after changing the algorithm. The devil is always stronger than the saint. The companies use cloud computing hosts to simulate human behavior in a distributed manner.

Taking too much aphrodisiac is poisonous

On the one hand, Miaopai is committing fraud itself, and on the other hand, it condones the content producers who have settled in to inflate the number of traffic. As time goes by, how can the honest people who have to wait for traffic in the backstage every day just sit there and wait?

A short video content producer found it difficult to understand Miaopai's counting method. "When a video is posted on Weibo, it will automatically play as long as the user swipes to it, completely abandoning the practice of other platforms to calculate conversion rate based on the number of clicks." "The Weibo front-end shows that it is indeed very popular, but I have several videos with more than 50,000 views on Weibo, but only a dozen clicks are shown on Miaopai's back-end."

This contrast led him to post his videos on Miaopai, considering it as a "reservation", without even thinking about getting support funds and policies from Miaopai. "If I don't post them on Miaopai, someone will definitely post them, and I have no way to protect my rights."

Another video producer found that the attitudes of various short video platforms towards fake traffic also differ. For example, Baidu Baijiahao has been actively recruiting short videos recently. For accounts included in the plan, the traffic subsidy for 10,000 clicks can reach 60-100 yuan. However, if you find a fake traffic company to fake traffic, it is likely that you can get 10,000 clicks for less than 1 yuan, so the platform will investigate and punish these accounts for fake traffic.

Although the two video producers mentioned above are guests of honor on other platforms, neither of them has received any support from Miaopai. "Miaopai seems to want to gain the most traffic with the least cost." One producer said that Sina Weibo's support for Miaopai mainly benefits Sina, and has nothing to do with short video producers.

Miaopai has become the video website and live broadcast platform it once was. The playback data of the entire platform is tens or even hundreds of times fake. But just like the absurd and bold list published by Miaopai, the industry actually let it go. What else can we say except that everyone is making trouble for themselves?

You know, in addition to being used for financing, data also plays a role in transmitting information in the market. When the platform blatantly falsifies data and the transmission function of data is cut off, it will directly mislead the capital industry and attract only gamblers who want to make a quick buck. Distorted data will also deceive advertisers, and the result of the rampant ineffective placement will only reduce the advertising value and price of short videos. Advertising is the most primitive and stable business model in the content industry. If this model is played dirty and damaged, it will be a fatal blow to the industry.

Not to mention that fake playback volume will mislead users' viewing behavior. Users are not fools. Your shoddy content has a huge number of clicks. If you deceive users again and again and want to cultivate them to pay to watch, you can dream on.

Therefore, we have enough reason to expect Miaopai to make changes, at least stop posting lists that make people laugh. Bragging is tax-free, but bragging too much will hurt your health.

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.