Chang became famous for her funny videos about rural life in Northeast China’s Liaoning Province on Douyin, gaining 22.3 million followers on the platform.
However on September 23, another Douyin influencer, Dawa, accused Chang of selling adulterated sweet potato noodles, claiming they contained no sweet potato and that he had the laboratory test results to prove it. Dawa also claimed that Chang’s team assaulted him and his associates in a confrontation over the dispute. After an investigation, local authorities in Benxi Manchu Autonomous County confirmed the fraud and fined Chang’s team 1.65 million yuan (US$231,800).
This case is just one among many influencer scandals this year. In September, Zhang Qingyang, known to his over 99.9 million followers on Douyin as Crazy Brother Yang, was fined 68.9 million yuan (US$9.7m) for false advertising of Hong Kong-made mooncakes, which were actually made in Guangzhou Province. Earlier in March, influencers Liangshan Mengyang and Liangshan Aza from Sichuan Province were found to have fabricated tales of hardship living in rural China to promote their agricultural goods. They were both fined and respectively sentenced to nine and 11 months in jail.
These incidents sparked public discussions about the disordered state of livestream commerce. Many netizens argue that trust is the foundation of the influencer economy – once lost, it can damage the entire industry. Experts are calling for stricter regulation of product quality and honesty in advertising to protect consumers.
Old Version
