Chapter 23: Cyber War
Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio Editor: Tennesh
At the morning meeting, the b*tch assistant whom Zhao Qi hated sniffed a lot. The manager was concerned she might have a cold. Only Zhao Qi and her close colleague, Shi Shi, sneakily smiled at each other. "Just wait and see! I'll carry more and more cat hair. Sooner or later, you'll make a fool of yourself in public!" Zhao Qi thought proudly. During lunchtime, Zhao Qi had lunch with some close female colleagues and showed off some cute pictures of Lan Lan, which made everybody excited again.
Zhao Qi finally got home at the end of the day. Lan Lan noticed right away and ran to her when she opened the door. Zhao Qi first closed the door and then held Lan Lan high over her head. "Baby, how are you doing today? Come on, give me a kiss!" After taking a shower, she sat in front of the computer, holding Lan Lan in her arm. When she went onto the Wang Haige forum, there were dozens of new unread comments on the upper right corner of the page, below her avatar. She was stunned when she saw the comments, as it seemed that several unknown posters had tried to attack her online.
"The one who recommended the pet shop is the owner’s marketer, right?"
"Right, I have never heard of that small shop. How could it have decent pets? It’s malicious to recommend that shop…"
"Hey, nowadays, there are always some losers who sold their own conscience for a little money," poster QI QI said. "To be honest, how much do you earn from the owner once you post a message?
"Maybe he is a damn demon and specifically made a female name."
"The picture of the cat must have come from the web and gone through photoshop."
"I want to join that team. I also want to earn money by posting!"
Zhao Qi held the mouse, shaking and extremely angry. She hadn’t been humiliated ever since she was born, except for that time with Teddy. Lan Lan felt it and was shaking while squatting on her lap, screaming uneasily.
She soon comforted Lan Lan. "Don’t worry, Lan Lan, don’t worry..." After the initial anger, Zhao Qi took a deep breath and gradually calmed down, and her eyes flashed coldness.
What was Zhao Qi's personality? One can tell from the matter between her and the b*tch assistant, she was definitely not a person who treated people with kindness. She admitted clearly to her bestie: a real man is sure to take revenge. I can secretly do it. It’s hard to tolerate it! Good men are wronged, horses are well ridden! It was the same in the workplace, in the network, as in life! She went to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee while refreshing her thoughts by walking around. By the time she got back to her computer, she had come up with countermeasures.
"You guys want to fight? Ok, let’s do it!" First, she created an empty folder on the desktop and saved screenshots of the posts that had assaulted her, in order to prevent them denying it in the future. She then clicked on those IDs one by one to check their previous posts and replies. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly.
These IDs had one thing in common, which was that they only stayed in the pet area, never spreading to the other sections. Another common point was that they never posted their own pets or tabbed into those technical help posts, but as long as they saw people posting for help to ask where to buy pets, they would appear crazily, like a swarm of bees. They always recommended Stars Pet Chain Supermarket, especially the franchise in Dongcheng District, putting down others all the while. These IDs collaborated together, someone praising and someone deprecating, and sometimes they changed roles in order to deceive the public.
Even if she had no idea before, now she realized that these IDs were really an internet water army[1]—the villains filed suit first, and the robbers acted like cops. They were the real internet water army, but they slandered others. They took advantage of the fact that confused people abhorred internet water armies so that they could manipulate public opinion. Maybe other people could tolerate this and be okay with not coming to this forum, but Zhao Qi was not that kind of person.
The rules posted at the top of the pet area clearly prohibited merchants, as well as internet water armies, from settling in this area. It illustrated that pet trading was done at the Secondhand Sale area, and violators would be punished. She was able to report these IDs right away, but she decided to adopt a long-term plan to secure something big. "Let’s see who the internet water army is!" She screenshotted these IDs’ posts and then made a post named "Find out who the merchants water army lurking in the pet area are."
In the post, she attached both their and her own posting records, presented the facts and reasoning, tearfully complained about the slander of these IDs, and begged people for justice. At the end of the post, she also put a picture of half of her obscured face and wrote, "In order to prove that I am honest, I exposed myself to show innocence! Rumormongers, do you dare to do the same?" As she clicked "post," the forum confirmed that the message was published successfully and was loading.
She put her forehead close to Lan Lan’s forehead and said, "Lan Lan, look at your sister giving vent to your anger!" This post had been issued, and it astonished everyone! In a male dominated forum, a beauty’s picture always caused a surge in hormones. It was half past eight in the evening. The number of people on the forum was at its peak. The article with both an extraordinary title and content had become the focus of the forum, and the popularity of the pet area kept increasing, almost equaling the trading area and chatting area, which were always the top two areas on the forum. Since her post was full of evidence, with excellent pictures and accompanying words, then as long as people weren’t pure idiots or selectively blind, they could see at first glance that the ID's records were really tricky, and even that the registration time was pretty close.
"It's too long to see it!"
"Damn! These IDs felt familiar. Why did they appear at every post and recommend the place to buy a pet? At first I thought they were ardent people, but as the page host said, they’re really a f*cking internet water army!"
"Beauty! Beauty!"
"Beauty will dominate the forum forever!"
"I have to say, I saw another of this host’s posts. I didn’t dare to speak because I was afraid people would give me a hard time. I bought a blue British Shorthair at Stars Pet Chain Supermarket too. Then I found something wrong with the cat. Why did its hair grow longer and longer? I came to a person who knew the business and was told that I was cheated. It was a hybrid of a British Shorthair and some long-haired cat... I went to that shop but they rejected me..."
"The reputation of the pet shop was destroyed by this shameless internet water army! The people were forced to catteries or kennels only!"
"I have proof for the host. Although the Amazing Fate Pet Store is not popular, it was opened many years ago and owned by a middle-aged couple with good reputations, but nobody knows why it closed down a while ago. I’m not aware of its situation right now since I haven’t been there recently..."
"F*cking, damn water army!"
"I was deceived by Stars Pet Chain Supermarket, too... because of the recommendation from the forum..."
"Me too..."
Situation reversed! Where there is oppression, there is resistance!
[1]On the Internet in the People's Republic of China, an Internet Water Army or Wangluo shuijun (simplified Chinese: 网络水军; traditional Chinese: 網絡水軍; pinyin: Wǎngluò shuǐjūn; Wade–Giles: Wang-luo shui-chün) is a group of Internet ghostwriters paid to post online comments with particular content. In this "astroturfing" (meaning "artificial grass-roots") technique for public relations and media manipulation, online Chinese companies employ people to make postings on social media in order to change public opinion.