Prostitution sting implicates China’s biggest daily deals site

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You can go online to find coupons and deals for just about everything in China: restaurant meals, hotel stays, movie tickets…and prostitutes? Yes, the world’s oldest profession has apparently embraced one of the world’s youngest professions, the world of online coupon sales. A recent prostitution sting in Beijing that led to seven arrests revealed that deals on prostitutes were being offered on both platforms run by the country’s largest daily deals company, Meituan-Dianping.

Meituan-Dianping was not aware of exactly what its merchant was offering, of course. The merchant in question was a spa with products like “healthcare massage” (a common euphemism for prostitution used in ads) ranging in price from US$105 all the way up to US$450. Meituan has told the Chinese press that it has already de-listed the merchant in question and begun an investigation.

Tech in Asia has contacted Meituan-Dianping for additional information on the company’s response to this situation and will update this story when we hear back.

Thus far, this seems to be a case of poor oversight rather than genuine malfeasance on the massive internet company’s part. Meituan-Dianping does have screening staff that check uploaded deals for red flags like prostitution-related euphemisms. But the merchant apparently changed advertising text and images after the initial upload and approval of its products. Meituan-Dianping has a team for double-checking these revisions too, and it seems to have been there where the ball was dropped.

The case isn’t likely to cause major long-term problems for Meituan-Dianping unless it happens again. But it does underscore the immense difficulty Chinese platform operators can face in trying to ensure that their offerings are free of anything that violates the law. Companies like Meituan employ large teams of censors to scan and double-check merchant uploads, but apparently it’s not too difficult for a few prostitution ads to slip through the cracks.