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A man surnamed Wang in China who operated 4,600 phones to inflate live-stream viewer counts, making 3 million yuan (US$415,000) in less than four months, has been jailed.
On Apr 17, Wang was sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined 50,000 yuan (US$7,000) for the crime of illegal business operations.
Wang began operating the business in late 2022 when a friend told him about a “lucrative” practice known as “brushing” (刷流量) — faking real-time activities such as viewer counts, likes, comments and shares in live-streaming to simulate genuine viewer interactions and mislead consumers.
Wang bought 4,600 mobile phones controlled by specialized cloud software. He also bought VPN services and network equipment, such as routers and switches, from a tech company based in Changsha in Hunan province.
With just a few clicks on his computer, Wang could operate all the mobile phones to simultaneously flood into a live-streaming target to inflate viewer counts and interactions.
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weehingthong 