Though many Chinese internet businesses and key opinion leaders (KOLs) say they rack up tons of online views and likes, are all of them actually as influential as they claim to be?

It’s hard to say. Artificial traffic from both man and machine has spread rapidly across the Chinese internet, and around 9 million people — roughly the population of Israel — have participated in a huge underground industry that fraudulently boosts web traffic for commercial purposes, said Zhang Baofeng, a senior cybersecurity researcher for Tencent, at a recent internet industry event.

That’s a problem, Zhang continued, because this artificially inflated traffic is linked to unfair competition that harms the legal rights of market players.

Zhang’s comments call to mind the recent case of a click-farming company called Feiyi that inflated the viewing figures of two videos hosted on the Chinese platform iQiyi. As a result of Feiyi’s actions, advertisers that placed commercials before or during the videos paid higher fees to piggyback on content that seemed popular but few people were actually watching. In addition, iQiyi paid higher broadcasting fees to the videos’ intellectual property owners, as such fees are largely determined by the number of views.

Zhang estimated that about 1,000 traffic-boosting companies exist in China, of which the largest 100 may post monthly revenues of up to 2 million yuan ($290,700). He did not mention how many individuals are estimated to engage in paid click farming.

Additionally, Zhang warned that local markets have developed an “obsession” with web traffic when judging the online influence of KOLs and companies, thereby creating a “bubble” in the boosting industry that nobody dares to pop for fear of losing out on potentially massive profits.

Contact reporter Zhao Runhua (runhuazhao@caixin.com)

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