Photo: CFP

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has intensified its crackdown on internet trolls. Since 2024, authorities have removed over 400 websites and platforms, prompting major platforms to delete 4.82 million illegal messages, and disposed 52,000 groups and 2.39 million accounts and online stores, CCTV News reported on Friday.

The reason for the authorities to punish the "internet water army" stems from the fact that for some time, these paid posters have significantly disrupted the online ecosystem through various means, according to the report.

Some criminals have set up self-service ordering platforms, providing services to artificially inflate reviews, likes, and popularity on social media platforms and attempted to evade crackdowns by using multiple redirects and shell websites. Among these, some lure users into placing orders and making payments without providing the promised services. Others try to masquerade their apps as legitimate to pass app store reviews, while in reality, they provide services for traffic manipulation.

In response, concerned authorities have coordinated with several platforms specifically used by internet trolls to close, guiding app stores to take measures such as blocking or removing certain applications. As a result, over 400 illegal websites and platforms have 
been shut down.

Some website platforms struggle with widespread homogenized content, where multiple accounts publish highly similar posts, short videos, and other content, exploiting trending topics to drive traffic and stir divisive sentiments. Some Multi-Channel Network (MCN) organizations have even organized accounts to engage in hype for profit, severely damaging the online ecosystem.

The CAC has imposed administrative penalties on websites and platforms with severe issues and insufficient rectification efforts, requiring them to thoroughly investigate problems and strictly deal with illegal accounts and MCN organizations. Currently, the relevant website platforms have improved their risk models for homogenized content as required, enhancing their ability to identify such cases, said the report.

In addition, some criminals have been using modified formats to post recruitment ads, attracting netizens to join groups to engage in illegal activities related to internet marketers. Among them, some criminals used buzzwords like "easy money" to add friends, then demanded membership fees, effectively committing fraud.

Under the guidance of the CAC, related website platforms have proactively conducted inspections and cleanups, lawfully shutting down illegal accounts and dissolving groups, and forwarding evidence of criminal activity to law enforcement authorities.

For increasingly sophisticated tactics employed by internet trolls, such as using short videos to post QR codes for traffic generation and peddling illegal internet water army services to users through chat and Q&A channels, CAC has urged relevant website platforms to close their shops and accounts, guiding some popular platforms to enhance cross-platform clue sharing and collaborate in combating the issue of internet marketers.

CCTV News also said that some lawbreakers routinely deploy bot accounts to flood comment sections with posts, taking the opportunity to boost rankings and create trending topics. Certain software tools have developed AI writing, group control of accounts, and bulk posting, enabling internet trolls to manipulate accounts and fabricate trending topics.

In response, the CAC has urged website platforms to address non-compliant accounts in line with legal and regulatory requirements, cooperating with relevant authorities to investigate AI tool-related internet water army groups. The authorities have also guided platforms to enhance their technical measures to detect and neutralize group control software and bot accounts promptly to effectively mitigate risks.

The CAC has implemented a long-term governance framework targeting internet trolls in collaboration with multiple departments, strengthening the coordination between administrative penalties and criminal prosecutions, and establishing a collaborative framework to jointly tackle the issue, further improving the online environment.

Global Times