Often called China's very own Tripadvisor, Mafengwo is currently filing a defamation lawsuit against those who alleged that it copied millions of user comments that can be found on its platform from its most popular rivals. Considered one of China's most popular travel websites, the company seeks to clear its name against the malicious allegations, claiming that the accusations are part of an organized attack.
On Saturday, Xiosheng Bibi, which is a news-related public account found on the social account WeChat, reported that around 18 million reviews that can be read on Mafenwo's website are merely copied and pasted from the websites of its competitors. the alleged act was called "pure plagiarism" because the comments were reportedly obtained and presented, word-for-word. The report also detailed that on some of the "copied" reviews, the names of those websites can even be seen.
The report, co-prepared and presented by Hooray Data, revealed that at the minimum, around 7454 fake accounts on Mafengwo were made to contribute these copied reviews. A total of 12.2 million plagiarized reviews were found, and 5.7 million of these were from the so-called fake user accounts. Hooray Data added that around 85% of the assumed "real user-generated content" that can be found on this Tripadvisor-comparable website was merely copied. The report also showed that around 11,521 plagiarized reviews were made by just four fake accounts, combined. The reporters therefore supposed that the company used bots to do the unethical activity.
They [Mafengwo] used bots to copy 18 million reviews from their rivals," the article surmised. Mafengwo is not taking these accusations sitting down.
In a statement made in Chinese, the company claimed that accusations stemmed from grossly misinterpreted facts. Mafengwo claimed that the copied reviews were netizens' illegal acts but ended up being blamed on the platform. The company also alleged that the activities stemming from bots and fake user accounts accounted for only a small portion of the company's total users. On Monday evening,it added that it already started the legal process against these defamatory.
The sixth Tone tried to get more comments from Xiaosheng Bibi WeChat and Mafengwo's PR Department after this, but neither had responded as of the moment.
One user cited as a source in Xiaosheng Bibi's revelation, Fengma, reportedly claimed that he was annoyed by the many bots making comments under his blog posts so he felt discouraged about continuing posting. The sixth Tone was able to contact the person, who claimed that it was true that he made these comments but he can also understand that large platforms often have bot activities.
