What kind of company would create an app feature allowing only women to post pictures and only rich men to comment on them?
Sexy photo posts aren’t traditionally associated with financial payment platforms, but users of Alipay were in for a shock last week when the app launched an eye-opening new option.
China’s largest third-party payment platform last Thursday updated its app with a new social networking feature called “Circles”, where women – and only women - could upload private photos and post threads.
The Circle groups—“Campus Diary” and “White Collar Diary”—allow only female users to post messages and photos. ALIPAY
Adding to the controversy, the app ranked men according to their data-driven Sesame Credit scores on Alipay. Only men with credit scores above 750 could comment on posts, while the less flush were restricted to liking photos or tipping the women up to 200 yuan (29 US dollars) to be their friends.
The update was an overnight hit among millions of young Alipay users in China – and sparked controversy that the online payment system has become a place to find soft pornography and prostitutes.
The new feature originally aimed to attract more transactions via Alipay as well as better compete with Tencent Holdings’ WeChat which also offers mobile payments. However, the feature inspired female users to earn money on the side.
Risque warning
Sexually suggestive and nude photos were posted by female users for tips or for a fee to accept friend requests, raising public concerns over the spread of pornographic material on social media.
Screenshots from Alipay’s social network “Circles”, “Campus Diary” and “White Collar Diary”, show sexually suggestive photos of female users hoping to make a quick buck. ALIPAY
Screenshots from Alipay’s social network “Circles”, “Campus Diary” and “White Collar Diary”, show sexually suggestive photos of female users hoping to make a quick buck.
“Online-to-offline prostitution is pretty cool,” Wang Sicong, the son of China’s richest man and real-estate magnate Wang Jianlin, wrote tongue in cheek and posted a photo of the Alipay logo superimposed over a nearly-naked woman on his verified Weibo account.
Alipay has transformed itself into a place for men to find hookers, commented Wang Sicong, son of China’s richest man Wang Jianlin, on his Weibo account. SINA WEIBO
According to Alipay, as of 17:00 BJT on Monday, around 12 million people had visited the “White-collar Diary” Circle group and 15 million people had looked at the “Campus Diary” Circle group. And the number of visitors keeps increasing.
Many updated their Alipay apps and discussed how they could improve their Sesame Credit scores. A Weibo user wrote: “This is called ‘booty-call credit’. You don’t have to worry they’ll run off without giving you the money.”
Abused credit
Sesame Credit scores can be artificially improved through either providing more private information or using Alipay more frequently.
Insiders pointed out that the Sesame Credit scores are used in non-credit scenarios and people are divided into various groups based on their credit scores. The insiders questioned the use of credit scores for marketing purposes, and said this was tantamount to abusing the credit system.
In response to the criticism, Alipay issued a statement on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Monday, explaining that the new feature was still in a testing phase. All explicit photos, as well as the rule allowing only men with high credit scores to comment on public Circle posts, were removed.
The company said: “Because of Alipay’s real-name system and big-data capacity, we have the ability to immediately recognize and handle unhealthy information as soon as it appears. At the same time, we will work with our partners to provide a positive social-media environment.”
