Content creators are falling victim to scammers lodging mass fabricated reports of platform violations in China, some of whom boast making over 50,000 yuan ($7,400) per month from their services.

Sellers are offering “account-striking,” including “software-based mass reporting” and “precision strikes,” on domestic secondhand trading platforms, according to an investigation published Tuesday by domestic media outlet The Beijing News. One such service was priced at 25 yuan for 500 platform complaints or 60 yuan for 5,000 complaints.

Account striking, or dahao, became widespread this summer, according to the investigation. This may in part be because it can take advantage of social media platforms’ increasing use of AI to review account-violation complaints.

One 19-year-old creator who posts short videos of herself painting told The Beijing News that one of her accounts, boasting nearly 60,000 followers, had been banned, while a second featuring 260,000 followers saw numerous videos taken down. Both incidents occurred after the same striker reported the accounts to their respective platforms.

The striker then privately messaged her, demanding a ransom of 1,000 yuan to withdraw the complaints. After she transferred the money, the complaints were withdrawn, and her videos were restored. 

Jia Bojun, a vlogger who posts videos debunking claims about sports supplements and diets, was also targeted. On Aug. 14, eight of his videos were taken down in under an hour for “portrait rights infringement,” despite the videos featuring no other people.

According to interviews with content creators affected by account strikes, The Beijing News found that teams of strikers often submit complaints simultaneously through a platform’s official reporting channel and by email, doubling success rates.

“To avoid liability, the platform will take down the video as long as there is even a slight possibility (of a violation), regardless of whether the complaint is real or not,” an anonymous account striker told The Beijing News. 

Another long-time operator said that many of the attacks stem from brand-to-brand mutual reporting, a commonplace tactic in today’s e-commerce-driven marketplace.

Some strikers go on to recruit apprentices, teaching them step-by-step takedown tactics and providing complaint scripts tailored to each platform, all for an additional fee. The most enterprising even establish their own online account-striking “schools.” 

Multiple short-video vloggers were quoted saying that appealing complaints requires significant time and effort, as well as submitting extensive personal information and evidence that they have not violated platform rules — and even then, a successful appeal is not guaranteed.

A cybersecurity expert who works with multiple short-video platforms said that although AI moderation offers platforms a “low-cost, high-efficiency solution” to complaints, it tends to take accounts and videos down first and review later. The cost then falls entirely on creators. “The right to report is a public governance tool provided to users by platforms,” the expert said. “It should not be turned into a priced commodity.”

The expert urged platforms to employ real people to review high-risk reports and flag suspicious accounts, as well as to protect creators’ rights. Platforms should also be required to share malicious-reporting data with police, they said.

Wang Hongmei, a lawyer at Hebei Sanhe Shidai Law Firm, called fabricating complaints and exploiting platform loopholes to maliciously take down videos or ban accounts for illicit gain a form of online “soft violence.” According to Wang, such behavior potentially violates China’s Public Security Administration Punishment Law and is therefore punishable by fines or detention.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: Visuals from iStock Vectors/VCG, reedited by Sixth Tone)