Start-up releases evidence of Mafengwo's allegedly plagiarized reviews

Hooray Data, a Shenzhen-based data analysis start-up whose research led to the claim that an estimated 85 percent of the "user-generated content" on China's TripAdvisor-like platform Mafengwo was plagiarized from rivals, has opened up access to part of its evidence.

The logo of China's TripAdvisor-like travel platform Mafengwo. [File Photo: IC]

The company announced on Monday that they had obtained numerous judicial-notarized video clips and screenshots as evidence, and had obtained the personal details of some Mafengwo employees it says were responsible for running fake accounts.

The start-up also provided full access to its study report, and links to what it says are the fake accounts on Mafengwo. The comments posted by those accounts have since been deleted.

The move follows denials by Mafengwo about the fake-review claims. Mafengwo alledges that it is the victim of an "organized attack," and filed a lawsuit against Hooray Data and its reporting partner, a news-related public account on WeChat called "Xiaosheng Bibi".

On Saturday, Hooray Data and "Xiaosheng Bibi" published their claims that Mafengwo has been using bots and employing people to copy and paste reviews from other platforms including Yelp, Agoda, Ctrip, and Dazhong Dianping. 

According to the report, 7,454 accounts plagiarized over 5.72 million restaurant reviews and more than 12.2 million hotel reviews on Mafengwo, accounting for around 85 percent of the total 21 million "user-generated content" reviews the company said were posted on its platform.

On Monday, Mafengwo published a statement its official Sina Weibo account, announcing that hotel and restaurant-related comments make up less than 3 percent of their platform's data. 

"The number of accounts suspected of false reviews accounted for a very small proportion of overall users, and Mafengwo has removed such accounts. The number of fake users mentioned in the media report is seriously inconsistent with the facts and third-party statistics," the company said.