Large-scale 'Cyber Water Army' Gang in Henan Busted, 276 Arrested, 50M Yuan Involved
TapTechNews August 22nd news, according to Xinhua News Agency's report on the 21st, the police in Xinxiang, Henan recently successfully destroyed a super-large cyber water army criminal gang with a large number of internet celebrities and big V accounts, arresting 276 criminal suspects, and the amount involved reached 50 million yuan.
A case of 50,000 yuan to 'create' a hot search was mentioned in the report. Mr. Niu, an auto reviewer with a self-media Weibo account, accidentally saw an advertisement video that helps to quickly increase fans and the heat of the account, and couldn't resist the temptation and paid 50,000 yuan in publicity fee to try to gain fans quickly.
After the other party received 50,000 yuan, they quickly forwarded, liked, and commented on the specified article through the software, but Mr. Niu found that after his blog post was on the hot search list of the car list, the comments in the comment area were all comments unrelated to the content of the blog post such as good and very good, and the accounts that posted the comments were all empty accounts, and the number of his fans did not increase.
TapTechNews summarizes the case process:
When Xinxiang cyber police patrolled the Internet, they found that multiple Weibo accounts were extremely active, frequently posting promotional advertisements, and vigorously promoting that their team could help customers significantly increase the viewing volume of the account content and increase the heat of the account, and even could be on the Weibo hot search list according to the customer's request.
The police chatted with the platform customer service as a customer and found that there is a big problem. The platform customer service claimed that the company had many real internet celebrities and big V accounts in use and a large number of ordinary Weibo accounts, and promised to stir up the customer-specified content to the hot search in a short period of time. The police judged that if this company used illegal means to control a large number of Weibo accounts to forward, like, and comment, it was very likely to be suspected of illegal business operation crime.
The Xinxiang Municipal Public Security Bureau gathered forces such as network security and quickly established a task force to crack down on cyber water army illegal and criminal acts; after careful investigation, a cyber water army gang under the guise of a cultural media company for the purpose of illegal profit gradually emerged.
The criminal suspect Zhang confessed that in order to increase his income, he bought a central control software that could be operated in batches. There were a large number of mobile phone simulators installed on the 10 computers in his studio, and each simulator logged in a Weibo account and installed software called Qianyu Central Control, which could automatically like, comment, and forward Weibo accounts. According to statistics, each computer in Zhang's studio was equipped with 50 mobile phone simulators, 10 computers could control 500 Weibo accounts.
In just this Henan-based cultural media company where Zhang is located, the internet brushers recruited all over the country have reached thousands of people. The police found through analyzing the capital flow of the involved company that there were two network companies located in Xiamen and Tianjin. These two network companies all controlled a large number of big V accounts, and these accounts had a t least hundreds of thousands of fans and at most millions of fans.
The modus operandi of the involved company is as follows:
A brand needs project promotion, and the network company provides a hot search promotion planning plan for the brand and signs an advertising contract
The network company packages the task to the downstream cultural media company at a fixed price
The downstream company organizes internet brushers to push the content required by the brand to the hot search through batch forwarding, liking, and commenting
The police introduced that the entire industrial chain is complete, with a clear chain and a wide coverage range. In the upstream of the chain, the network company that manages many internet celebrities and big V accounts uses the resources in their hands to plan promotion plans and set rush list goals; in the downstream of the chain, internet brushers become a tool to create hot topics after being recruited by various cultural companies through false clicks, comments, and likes.
After mastering the relevant criminal facts, the police launched a series of arrest operations and arrested 276 criminal suspects such as Lai and Zhang in Henan, Fujian, Tianjin, Shanghai, etc., and seized a number of criminal mobile phones and computers. The investigation found that this cyber water army criminal gang had operated as many as 800 million times in false Weibo likes, forwards, and comments, involving social public opinion, hot events, star images, advertising promotion, and account operation and other fields, seriously disrupting the online ecology.
At present, the police have taken criminal coercive measures against 94 people, transferred 19 people for prosecution, shut down 6 cyber water army companies, and seized 4 sets of automatic batch like, comment, and forward software. The case is still under further handling.