º¬Ðß²ÝÉçÇø

As information travels at lightning speed in the digital era, misconduct spreads swiftly in the vast arena of cyberspace. The phenomenon of the ¡°internet water army¡± is one such unfortunate byproduct, having provoked a series of tricky legal issues over the years. This article sets out the definition of internet water armies ¨C how they operate, the traits of their behaviour, and their legal liability ¨C analysing the difficulties in defending against them and offering practical advice to counter their impact.

The internet water army

Put simply, the term refers to organised trolls in China¡¯s cyberspace. Paid by certain organisations or individuals, they sway online narrative or harm others¡¯ legitimate rights by way of mass-registering accounts and disseminating false information. At best, this makes them a general nuisance; at worst, a threat to cybersecurity.

Internet water armies roughly fall under two modes of operation. The first is centralised control, where a few operators use synchronisation software or AI mass generation tools to directly control a large number of accounts, enabling them to act in concert. The second is crowdsourcing, which involves breaking down the mission into individual tasks and paying at piece rate.

Water armies are often highly organised, premeditated and physically dispersed. Members may be all over the place. But upon command, they can output highly homogenised content towards a common goal, all within a designated timeframe. With the help of dynamic IP addresses, proxy servers or other such technologies, the army operators and their clients get to conceal their real identities and remain behind the scenes.

What is their aim?

Often, the internet water army is tasked to:

1. Fabricate false narrative or misleading information to attract traffic and followers to an account, boosting its value to sell at a higher price;
2. Create false likes and shares to streamers or fan groups;
3. Quickly boost the score or ranking of a certain work or app, creating untrue praise and popularity;
4. Maliciously mass attack certain targets, causing their content to be delisted or restricted, or their accounts to be banned;
5. Post laudatory messages to sway the narrative, or delete or ¡°sink¡± negative posts; and
6. Collect or manufacture and expand negative information with which to extort the target business.

Legal liabilities

Civil liabilities. Fabricating information, insults, slander and such acts that harm the goodwill of businesses and individuals constitutes infringement on the right of reputation. Disseminating false information to intentionally harm the reputation of a competitor could fall under suspicion of commercial defamation. If public interest is infringed, a civil public interest lawsuit could be initiated by the procuratorial organs (state prosecutors).

Administrative liabilities. Cyberspace administrators, market regulators and other administrative organs may order the water army operators to rectify, issue warnings and fines, confiscate illegal earnings, shut down illegal accounts or websites, or suspend the relevant business. Any infringement on the rights of civil subjects may lead to both civil and administrative liabilities.

Criminal liabilities. Unsanctioned operations, such as being paid to delete posts, boost views or sway comments, could constitute the crime of illegal business operations. Extorting businesses by threatening to expose negativity could result in being charged with extortion. Fabricating and organising the spread of false information to disrupt public order constitutes the crime of ¡°picking quarrels and provoking trouble¡±. Cases not meeting the threshold for criminal prosecution may still incur administrative penalties.

Governance hurdles

Difficulty identifying the tech. The water army could release plausible but untrue AI-generated content on a massive scale, which current regulatory technology finds challenging to identify quickly and accurately.

Highly concealed chain of operation. The water army uses fake IDs, bulk purchases of unregistered SIM cards, dynamic IP proxies and overseas servers to conceal identities, increasing the cost and difficulty of tracing and obtaining evidence.

Safeguarding rights is more trouble than it is worth. In judicial practice, businesses face the reality of lengthy legal actions, inability to address any public relations crisis promptly, and difficulty in seeking remedy for immediate commercial damages. In any event, courts tend to be prudent with compensation awarded for intangible damages, which can sometimes barely cover the actual losses and expenses, leaving businesses unmotivated to pursue further.

Imbalance between illegal gains and penalties. With a single operation, the water army could rake in profits in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of renminbi, while the administrative penalties or civil compensation often fall far below this number. Consequently, some businesses have given up on legal remedy altogether and resort to paying hush money or violent retaliation, feeding back into the underground economy.

What can be done?

Professional online monitoring. Businesses should set up a dedicated system to monitor online public opinion, which helps identify any sudden spikes in homogenised, formulaic content or account irregularities.

Know your users. Real users provide sporadic, diverse and unique feedback, while water army attacks tend to arrive within a short time, follow templates and act in concert. Studying their behavioural differences could help boost identification accuracy.

Big data analysis. Businesses are advised to routinely analyse accounts, topics and content to monitor changes in public opinion, and keep a close eye on narrative dynamics, sudden concentrated appearances of keywords, and abnormal shifts in sentiment.

High-risk account pool. Remain vigilant on long-term blacklisted accounts and irregular accounts. Time of registration, periods of activity, composition of friends and followers, and behavioural patterns are some of the data worth monitoring and analysing continuously.

Secure timely evidence. With the aid of big data analysis, evidence for suspicious and non-compliant content should be secured as soon as possible. Investigation into organisational connections between account groups, content and behaviour is recommended, as the result could be more favourable than any isolated evidence collected.

Differentiated response. Filing a complaint on the relevant platform might suffice against any singular water army account. On the other hand, for cases that involve long-term smearing leading to actual losses, warrant filing lawsuits to demand compensation. In case of organised crime or extortion, the business should promptly compile evidence and report it to the police.