Broadcasters jailed for live streaming fraud charity work

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Two live stream broadcasters were sentenced to more than three years in jail by a court at Sichuan Province’s Liangshan Yi Minority Autonomous Prefecture on Thursday as they made profits with over 500,000 yuan from broadcasting fake charity work to poor villagers.

Live streaming charity activities online became a hit last November as broadcasters thought it was a good way to gather attention and accumulate followers.

“Attention! I promised to donate 30,000 yuan to people living in poverty and now I’m honoring my words," said a broadcaster known as Jiege in one of his live streams.

Jiege then started to give out the 30,000 yuan cash in his hands to each villagers standing behind him during the broadcast.

Screen shot of Jiege's live stream

However, Jiege’s rival broadcaster Heishu unveiled a video showing Jiege’s assistant taking back the money after the show. In the video, Jiege was also seen ordering the villages to queue up before the show.

As a revenge, Jiege also exposed other broadcasters who fraud audience and pretended to do charity in the country.

CCTV News Photo

Many audience expressed disappointment after the video was revealed. Broadcaster Heige then decided to quit live streaming, saying no one can avoid making mistakes in life.

According to the police investigation, Jiege and his rival Heishu have each made cash of around 200,000 yuan for their live streams.

The court says faking live stream audience and making profits from sympathies are illegal. They added that fake content in live stream will be the next focus for Internet fraud investigation.