Before the official opening, negative reviews have already followed one after another. Recently, many local catering businesses in Zhengzhou and Luoyang, Henan have been maliciously attacked by professional negative reviews and black industry. The gang concocted fake negative reviews in bulk and used the rules linking platform ratings and traffic to crack down on small shops. After the merchant's permission flow is reduced, they will borrow the machine to demand deletion fees, and even sell paid packages claiming to be able to "force the store to stop" to the outside world. The evaluation mechanism that should have served consumers has now become a tool for black industry to extort merchants.

The hardest hit area for negative occupational evaluations and black industries

Recently, there have been vicious incidents of professional negative reviews and illegal production in Zhengzhou, Luoyang and other places in Henan Province. Some businesses have not even officially opened for business and have been attacked by a large number of false negative reviews.

According to Henan Radio and Television Station's "Xiaoli Help" report, the program received a request for help from a barbecue shop owner who added more than 120 negative reviews in just 11 days. At the same time, the fan also demanded a "protection fee" of 300 yuan from the shop owner. Another shop owner invested 600000 yuan in a loan to open a store, but suffered from malicious negative reviews for two consecutive months, causing the daily turnover of the store to shrink from over 10000 yuan to several thousand yuan; Even if the merchant sends out an empty package for evidence collection, they still receive a false evaluation that the food is not fresh.

Most of these black industry gangs distribute orders through WeChat groups, and the commission for a single negative review is only a dozen yuan. The black production team even launched package services, including a 450 yuan basic suppression package, which arranges 30 people to operate and suppress competitor rankings; 1890 yuan advanced package, operated by 60 people to pull the store ranking to the bottom; The ultimate package of 2700 yuan claims that 90 people can invalidate store data and force merchants to reopen their stores.

Unlike physical transactions on e-commerce platforms, local lifestyle services, especially catering consumption, have strong subjective attributes in their evaluations, and descriptions such as "poor taste" and "gastrointestinal discomfort after eating" are difficult to falsify. At the same time, merchants are deeply bound to the platform's ranking, traffic distribution, and store ratings. Negative reviews not only lead to user loss, but also may trigger the platform's demotion and flow restriction mechanisms for merchants, directly affecting the survival of small shops. This rule of "rating is the lifeline" leaves an opportunity for black industry to take advantage of, without the need for complex technology. By placing bulk orders and writing negative reviews, it can grasp the survival pain points of merchants.

What is even more alarming is that the negative review black industry has formed a mature profit model and is no longer a scattered individual behavior. A survey shows that many professional negative reviewers can earn three incomes with one order: receiving task commissions; Apply for a refund of the order from the platform; Add the merchant's WeChat and ask for red envelopes under the pretext of deleting negative reviews and stopping brushing reviews. Low cost and fast profit have also led to the continuous spread of such illegal activities in the local lifestyle industry.

Among them, the commission for tasks related to negative reviews of black products often comes from competitors of the merchants being criticized. According to Cover News, on July 11, 2022, Huang Mouli posted a message on her WeChat Moments, soliciting people from outside to place orders at peer stores and requesting a one star review after receiving the goods. After completing the evaluation, participants can retrieve the payment, keep the purchased sweet potato skins, and receive an additional 5 yuan reward. Starting from July 12th, a large number of one star reviews appeared in the Tiaopi product evaluation area of this peer store, resulting in a decrease in the number of store visitors and platform dynamic ratings. The Chengdu Railway Transport First Court made a first instance judgment in March 2026, determining that Huang Mouli and her affiliated food company instructed others to publish misleading evaluations, damaged the business reputation of peers, and constituted commercial defamation. The court ordered Huang Mouli to apologize in writing and compensate 6000 yuan.

It is worth noting that the means of professional negative reviews of black products are rapidly evolving, posing huge challenges to the rights protection of victimized businesses. According to a report by Henan Radio and Television Station's "Xiaoli Help", professional negative reviews of black industry have begun to use the guise of "four-star praise" to crack down: giving out four-star ratings, but the text is filled with "dry skewers, strange smell, and diarrhea". This kind of negative review disguised as a positive review cannot be directly judged as malicious by the platform, and it is difficult for merchants to appeal.

In addition, black industry crimes are becoming increasingly covert, with a large number of scattered part-time accounts placing orders and money flowing through private channels such as WeChat. It is very difficult for merchants to provide complete evidence that the other party belongs to a professional negative review gang. Many reported cases are difficult to file quickly due to scattered amounts and incomplete evidence chains. Platform technology also has limitations. Many businesses have reported that even if they have surveillance videos to prove that the food has not been taken away, their appeals are often rejected as "personal subjective feelings". Many times, after the store rating has plummeted and traffic has been damaged, the platform risk control intervenes to deal with it.

Multi party collaborative governance

The cost of safeguarding rights is high, but the cost of committing wrongdoing is very low. Merchants need to collect chat records, transfer vouchers, and on-site videos to prove their innocence, which consumes a lot of time and energy. Even if the merchant is ultimately proven to be maliciously brushing reviews, it is difficult to recover the lost customers and damaged reputation of the store.

The proliferation of false negative reviews is eroding the credibility of online evaluation systems. Online reviews were originally a channel for consumers to supervise businesses and force service improvement, but now they have become a tool for professional negative reviews and blackmailing businesses. This behavior not only undermines the fair competition order in the market, but also triggers a serious crisis of social trust. A small shop that operates with care may not be able to tolerate harassment and close down, and ordinary consumers may also be biased by false evaluations. Over time, the public's trust in local lifestyle platforms will also be eroded.

To curb negative reviews and black industry, it is urgent for platforms, regulators, and judicial departments to form a joint force. The current laws have relevant provisions to regulate it. For example, Article 12 of the Anti Unfair Competition Law clearly stipulates that "operators shall not fabricate, disseminate, or instruct others to fabricate, disseminate false or misleading information, which damages the commercial reputation and product reputation of other operators." Similarly, Article 6 of the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Defamation and Other Crimes Involving the Use of Information Networks clearly states that "those who threaten or coerce others, demand public or private property, or repeatedly commit the above-mentioned acts on the grounds of processing network information through publishing, deleting, etc. on the information network, shall be convicted and punished for the crime of extortion in accordance with Article 274 of the Criminal Law." Judicial organs have made judgments on multiple cases of professional negative evaluation, such as the Longhua District People's Court in Shenzhen City, which once charged extortion with the crime of extortion. Convict two 'professional negative evaluators' Imprisonment with a fine. The Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Handling of Criminal Cases Involving the Use of Information Networks to Carry out Crimes by Black and Evil Forces also point out that "those who threaten, blackmail, intimidate, or harass others through the publication or deletion of negative or false information, the sending of insulting information and images, and the use of information and telephone harassment, shall be accurately identified and severely punished in accordance with the law." "Those who use information networks to threaten others, force transactions, and the circumstances are serious shall be convicted and punished for the crime of forced transactions in accordance with Article 226 of the Criminal Law

The network security department of the public security organs relies on the "Clean Net-2026" special action to carry out a special struggle to deepen the crackdown on organized crime and eliminate evil. The public security network security department has released multiple typical cases of black and evil crimes such as public opinion extortion.

At the same time, the platform is also duty bound. Major platforms are using technological means to accurately identify abnormal behaviors such as batch brushing and template based evaluations, and actively intercept them. Some platforms have also implemented a mechanism for centralized review of new accounts before displaying them. At the same time, the platform needs to optimize the review and appeal mechanism, and smooth the channels for small and micro businesses to protect their rights. Platforms that focus on local life circles, such as Dianping, Meituan, and Gaode, have all stated that they have used AI for risk control and actively intercepted malicious negative reviews.

Solving the problem of negative reviews and black production requires multi-party collaboration. Regulatory authorities should clarify the boundary between legitimate consumer evaluations and malicious attacks, strictly crack down on illegal and criminal activities such as extortion, malicious claims, and involvement of online black and evil forces, hold those involved criminally responsible in accordance with the law, and thoroughly eradicate the negative evaluation black industry chain. The platform needs to upgrade its AI risk control to accurately intercept abnormal evaluations, optimize the appeal mechanism to reasonably share the burden of proof, and increase the cost of illegal production through credit penalties such as flow restrictions and bans. Market competition should return to the products and services themselves, relying on genuine word-of-mouth to win customers. When the moisture in reviews is squeezed out, online reviews can truly return to their original function.

(The author of this article is a researcher at the Jingguan Research Institute)