Chinese singer Kris Wu accused of using bots on iTunes
- 5 years ago
CHINA — Canadian-Chinese singer Kris Wu has been accused of encouraging his Chinese fans to use bots to boost his new album sales.
According to Hot New Hip Hop, Wu's latest album November Rain was bought 14 million times in 24 hours, with seven of its songs making it into the US iTunes Top 10.
The little known artist outside of China bumped Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga of top spots on iTunes in the States temporarily.
A since deleted tweet from Ariana Grande manager Scooter Braun accused the singer and his team of using bots to game the iTunes sales charts.
Bots are algorithms that can generate automated clicks to inflate streaming numbers and sales figures.
Wu has 158,000 followers on Twitter, which is blocked in China and 45 million followers on China's Weibo.
According to Variety, an insider told them that following patterns of high-volume purchases on iTunes of "Antares," Wu's album sales were acquired fraudulently and will not count toward the iTunes sales chart reported to Nielsen.
According to Hot New Hip Hop, Wu's latest album November Rain was bought 14 million times in 24 hours, with seven of its songs making it into the US iTunes Top 10.
The little known artist outside of China bumped Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga of top spots on iTunes in the States temporarily.
A since deleted tweet from Ariana Grande manager Scooter Braun accused the singer and his team of using bots to game the iTunes sales charts.
Bots are algorithms that can generate automated clicks to inflate streaming numbers and sales figures.
Wu has 158,000 followers on Twitter, which is blocked in China and 45 million followers on China's Weibo.
According to Variety, an insider told them that following patterns of high-volume purchases on iTunes of "Antares," Wu's album sales were acquired fraudulently and will not count toward the iTunes sales chart reported to Nielsen.