Article by [author-name] (c) South China Morning Post - Read full story here.
China’s live-streamers use fake traffic and virtual gifts to draw real eyeballs
In 2018, when China’s live-streaming industry was growing at lightning speed, Huang Xiaobing felt her one-year career as an online live broadcaster had hit a bottleneck.So she decided to start her own agency in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin focusing on entertainment live-streaming, managing online broadcasters who sang, danced or chatted with audiences in return for virtual gifts that could be converted to money, with the agency taking a cut.In her new role, she helped the aspiring live…