Man Jailed In China For Using 4,600 Phones To Fake Live-stream Views

Isn’t the popularity enjoyed by some of the YouTubers in recent times mesmerising? The content creators have not only become famous but also been able to earn a lot of money through their videos. YouTube starts paying the creator when the channel has at least 1,000 subscribers and more than 4,000 watch hours in the past year. In view of this, a man from China was recently arrested by the authorities after he used thousands of phones to have fake viewers and traffic on his live streams. It was found that he was able to make around $415,000 (approximately Rs 3.4 crore) using these views in less than four months.

According to a report by the South China Morning Post, a man named Wang from China was sentenced for one year and three months for being involved in a ‘crime of illegal business operations’. It has been reported that he was also fined $7,000 (Rs 5.84 lakh). Wang reportedly used around 4,600 phones to engage people in his streams in order to increase the watch hour of his YouTube channel. It was found that he continued to do this for four months and was able to make more than $400,000 (Rs 3.4 crore).

As per the report, Wang started running this illegal activity in 2022 when his friend introduced him to a concept called ‘Brushing’. It refers to faking real-time activities such as viewer counts, likes, comments and shares in live-streaming in order to get real-time interaction from the viewers and mislead consumers. In order to accomplish his task, Wang bought 4,600 mobile phones, which were controlled by specialised cloud software. Apart from that, he also bought routers, VPN services, network equipment and switches from a tech company so that he could control the viewing. With just a few clicks, he was able to operate all the mobile phones together and inflate the interaction on his channel.

Currently, Wang and 17 other suspects are under investigation for breaking national regulations and spreading fake information through publishing services so that they could earn profits and disrupt the market order.