Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok is not taking any chances with illicit activities on the platform. According to its security center, the “Woodpecker Special Operation 2020” is cracking down on violations in the live broadcast scene. As of November 30, more than 1.2 million have been punished for illegal activities. Specifically, 67,380 accounts are facing punishment for an illegal live broadcast. These accounts are facing an outright ban with no option of coming back. Furthermore, approximately 15,000 accounts have been blocked for unmanned live broadcasting.
According to reports, the “Woodpecker Special Operation” is an initiative of the Douyin Security Center. This is necessary to protect the rights of platform users from harm. It also maintains the platform’s ecology by stoping various illegal activities on the platform. In 2019, this “Woodpecker Special Operation” had to block 2.03 million illegal Douyin accounts.
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The 2020 “Woodpecker Special Operation” starts from November 1st to crack down on the common violations in live broadcast scenes such as painting popularity, unmanned live broadcast, scalping goods, grabbing red envelopes, and cheating. The operation will last for two months. Many of the illegal activities aim towards creating fake popularity. Cheating anchors on illegally using third-party software or purchasing counterfeit services. Furthermore, creating fake accounts and fake popularity data in live broadcast rooms is also common.
Douyin’s crackdown on offenders has been very successful
At present, the Douyin Security Center has deployed major business scenarios such as account registration and login, community ecology, marketing activities, and API security. The company is doing quite well with its crackdown on these offenders.
The Douyin Security Center found that many users are shifting from the initial machine program cheating to a real-life cheating model. Many of the cheating methods are almost the same as the behavior of real users. For example, the black and gray production gang will use “group control software” to control dozens of mobile phones to help cheat anchors to improve their popularity.
To this end, in addition to strengthening technical capacity building and investment, the Douyin Security Center also launched an offline attack on the “group control software”. In the past two months, Douyin officials filed lawsuits against four “group control software” operating companies involved in Douyin in Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. It also received support from the local courts in Hangzhou and Guangzhou to issue injunctions. The court injunction says that these “group control software” should cease operations immediately.
