Chapter 41: Weibo? Just a Paid Public Toilet. If You Don't Kill Me, I'll Kill You

Page after page of documents was displayed before the camera, rendering the audience in the livestream completely silent.

The materials brought out by Xu Qingfeng not only included detailed personnel relationship charts, but also contracts—explicitly showing when and which celebrities bought what data, down to the smallest detail.

There were even records of hijacked user accounts, a dense forest of usernames that made one's head spin.

[What the hell, I just saw my own account there.]
[No wonder I inexplicably retweeted several Weibo posts.]
[Is Weibo really this corrupt? Stealing user accounts directly?]
[Damn it, my account got relentlessly mocked by my sarcastic friends for two whole weeks because of those posts. Cost me three meals.]
[Trash platform, go bankrupt already.]
[To hell with Weibo!]

The audience had just been casually watching the drama unfold, only to suddenly realize they were part of it, and their fury was instantly ignited.

A Weibo account was their personal space, much like their own home where unauthorized entry was strictly forbidden. Yet now, Xu Qingfeng was telling them that their homes didn't even have doors, and Weibo employees waltzed in every day just to drop garbage. Who could possibly tolerate that?

Xu Qingfeng shook the documents in his hand. "I will be submitting all these materials collectively to the Cyberspace Administration of China. I, Xu Qingfeng, am making a real-name report. I suggest Weibo tries to destroy me quickly, or else I will destroy you."

[Holy crap, bro, hire more bodyguards. I'm genuinely afraid you're going to get whacked.]
[A hero!]
[Bro, I'll personally protect you!]

Xu Qingfeng's explosive revelations directly shocked Liu Fusheng, the head of Weibo's marketing department.

Liu Fusheng, who had just fallen asleep, was jolted awake by a phone call and subsequently learned of Xu Qingfeng's suicide-mission-style exposés.

"How does he dare? What the hell!" Veins bulged on Liu Fusheng's forehead, and he looked ready to shatter his own teeth.

"Is he out of his mind? Has Lin琛 lost his mind?"

It wasn't until he saw the documents sent by his subordinates that he realized Xu Qingfeng was truly prepared to go down with Weibo, a seemingly insignificant fish that somehow possessed the capability to drag them down with it.

Ever since Weibo's inception, no celebrity had ever dared to expose the platform in such a manner, unless they had a death wish.

Weibo's public relations department held an emergency meeting, everyone staring at Xu Qingfeng's livestream while frantically discussing countermeasures.

Meanwhile, in the livestream, Xu Qingfeng didn't stop there. He pulled out another stack of documents, and the conference room fell into absolute silence.

"If manipulating accounts to artificially inflate data is watering things down, then the water Weibo has poured could easily fill the Pacific Ocean. But as far as I know, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Next, let's look at a new set of data."

"Last year, a scandal involving oil tankers mixing edible oils across multiple provinces was exposed. The relevant hashtag accumulated over 500 million views, yet it never managed to trend. At the same time, a certain celebrity changing their hairstyle occupied the top spot for over 12 hours with only 8 million views. Quite magical, isn't it? Zhang Hongbo's tax evasion scandals had their trending searches continuously removed, and Chen He's trending topics couldn't even break into the top three."

Xu Qingfeng furrowed his brows and shook his head. "Isn't this underestimating Chen the Scumbag's influence just a bit too much? Back in the day, he could trend just by letting out a fart, and now that he's eating out of the iron rice bowl of prison, he can't even trend anymore? Do you think Chen the Scumbag is old and useless now? Be careful or Chen the Scumbag will file a complaint against you from inside his cell."

[Weibo's trending searches are indeed bizarre.]
[The things you actually want to see are nowhere to be found, while the things you couldn't care less about are shoved in your face every day.]
[I stopped looking at Weibo ages ago. It's just a pile of crap.]
[Who wants to care about those jerk-offs and their stupid trivial drama? Cutting their hair or changing their clothes gets them trending. I can't tell if they're sick in the head or if they think we are.]

The audience's emotions were easily provoked, and Xu Qingfeng struck while the iron was hot, presenting the second set of documents. "Crime number two: trending searches have clear price tags. Getting on the trending list costs money, and getting taken down costs money too. The top three trending spots have a real-time quote of 60,000 yuan. There's no guarantee of duration—the moment you go up, you pay, even if it's only for a minute. Trending topics are divided into various tiers; the top 50 cost 25,000 yuan, and buying a full day is cheaper, at 600,000 yuan a day. 90% of all trending topics you see are bought by different teams, with maybe about 5 of them being genuine. That bastard Weibo really understands Sun Tzu's Art of War; playing the game of nine fakes to one truth is something they've mastered."

"These paid trending topics fluctuate wildly, with the wheel of fortune turning so that every topic gets a chance to touch the top three. Therefore, most trending topics have to shell out 60,000 yuan. On trending searches alone, Weibo brings in several million yuan a day."

Xu Qingfeng flipped to the second page. "Not only does getting on the trending list cost money, but wanting to get removed costs money too. Although Weibo is a public restroom, it's not somewhere you can just walk in and out of as you please. Even an iron rooster would get stripped of a layer of skin."

"Come on, everyone, take a look at the price list. For criminal offenses like Zhang Hongbo's, the quote to get it removed is the highest, starting at 600,000 yuan. Getting it removed three times a day means 1.8 million yuan vanishes into thin air. For someone like Chen He, you have to pay a surcharge—1 million yuan per removal. Chen the Scumbag is wealthy and doesn't care about pocket change, so he had it removed several times a day. Public bus Miao Qing's trending topics were a bit lackluster, only costing 200,000 yuan to remove, while Jiang the Scumbag's cost 500,000."

Xu Qingfeng smacked his lips. "You have to hand it to Chen the Scumbag; look at that status—a few words cost a million. The rest of you need to practice more!"

[I guess I've gotten too full of myself, actually thinking 60,000 yuan to trend isn't expensive.]
[Give me a full-day package!]
[Holy mother of god, so the trending list is just a billboard?]
[Any stray cat or dog can go up there and take a spin.]
[Spit!]

At Weibo headquarters, Liu Fusheng's face was as dark as charcoal. "How did he get hold of documents like this?"

"There's a mole, obviously." Several people stared at Liu Fusheng with hostile expressions; the marketing department was the prime suspect.

Liu Fusheng paused for a moment, then roared, "It wasn't me!"
"Who knows!"
"You!"
"Stop arguing. Prepare to start public relations."

After making a few sarcastic remarks, Xu Qingfeng flipped open another document. "Of course, I advise everyone not to act on impulse and buy trending searches just because they seem cheap. Weibo is the absolute worst kind of entity; not only do they like to raise prices on a whim, but they also like to cut corners. For example, at the beginning of the month, a certain sucker spent 500,000 yuan on data, agreeing on 1 million real users and 4 million bot accounts. In reality, out of that batch of data, only 10,000 were real users—a staggering 90% water weight. Weibo's heart is pitch black; whoever buys from them is a total idiot."

"And look at this one—they bought 1 million followers, but only 1,000 were real. Wake up, you've been scammed, you suckers."

[Holy crap, mixing sand into rice, are they?]
[Absurd. Black-hearted merchants at the vegetable market would have to tip their hats to this.]
[Good lord, this business is seriously profitable.]
[I knew their follower counts looked ridiculously fake.]
[According to their algorithm, the entire world is following them. They probably counted the village dogs too.]
[Right now, I'm only worried the streamer is going to suddenly commit suicide.]
[You are a true warrior.]

Xu Qingfeng shook the documents in his hand. "I will be handing all these materials over to the Cyberspace Administration. If Weibo still wants to kill me, please hurry up. If you're too late, I'm afraid you won't have the chance. Brothers in the livestream, take note: if the streamer really gets whacked, it was definitely Weibo's doing. Don't forget to help me call the police when that happens."

[Definitely.]
[Where's the funeral feast being held?]
[I'm sitting at the children's table.]

Xu Qingfeng broke character, exasperated, "Everyone else gets to eat, but you're not getting a single bite at the feast."

"Now that we're done talking about the Weibo restroom, let's continue looking at the maggots crawling inside."

Xu Qingfeng logged into Weibo, tapped the search bar, and typed in "Xu Qingfeng is a bastard," his movements smooth, fluent, and practiced to perfection.