What Should Be Done to Deal With Pinduoduo’s Glitch-caused Losses?

On January 20, Pinduoduo, a Chinese ecommerce platform where buyers can get discounts by shopping as an online group, announced that it had suffered losses of millions of yuan due to an uncontrolled avalanche of discount coupons online. Due to a glitch in the company’s computer system, users were able to top up their phones by 100 yuan ($14.74) while paying only 0.4 yuan ($0.06) and many users used this opportunity to top up their phones multiple times.

In a statement on its official account of China’s leading microblog platform Weibo on the following day, Pinduoduo said it had rectified the problem and reported the incident to police. It also said it was tracking the online orders that used those coupons.

Such glitch- caused catastrophes, though rare, did happen. In early 2018, Tencent, China’s Internet giant, took a hit because its system was exploited by some underground chains. In such cases, usually, the businesses have to bear the losses themselves, with the fraud going unsolved.

This time, the extremely large loss Pinduoduo sustained has triggered heated discussions. According to the police in Shanghai, where Pinduoduo is headquartered, if there is evidence to show an underground chain was discovered, the involved group can be punished for fraud. Since this is the era of artificial intelligence (AI), people are concerned about crises that can be caused by glitches in computer systems.

At the same time, some say that some non-criminal individuals also came across these coupons and used them in good faith. So should they also be punished? Also, what is the role of the law in preventing and preempting such incidents?

Take more precautions Tu Zipei (tech.sina.com.cn):

Different economic forms, whether they are old or new, always have some flaws. The new economy is a kind of virtual economy that is based on big data, algorithms and logistics. Here, AI plays a crucial role. But the problem is, at the present stage, AI lacks basic common sense. Once mistakes are made, disasters will follow.

In conventional department stores, it’s impossible that shop assistants will mistakenly issue so many coupons. However, if such a mistake does occur, the coupons can’t be tracked. But since we live in a digitalized time, these coupons are traceable digitally. Pinduoduo can negotiate with consumers who have got the coupons so as to minimize its losses.

This is not the first time that a glitch caused chaos. Online shopping platform Taobao was once hit by this problem. As an e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo should adopt more measures to deal with such problems.

Zhang Shule (tech.sina.com.cn):

This time, the glitch is so big that it’s even likely to endanger this online discounter’s very survival. Obviously, those who exploited the loophole did something wrong. Not only online collectives but some individuals also took advantage of the floating coupons. The huge loss will win Pinduoduo sympathy from the online shopping industry and platform users. Its efforts to block these discount vouchers and take legal action against the underground chain will not affect its image.

It has already announced that the 100yuan coupons will be replaced with 5-yuan ($0.74) coupons. Since the 5-yuan coupons are also a windfall, most consumers will not take Pinduoduo to task. A small number of consumers may try to sue but that will not do too much harm either. It all depends on the platform’s capability to deal with such crises.

The Beijing News): In this case, consumers who got only a few coupons should not be punished. As the victim, Pinduoduo has the right to stop the transactions and consumers should cooperate. But in cases where a third party is involved, Pinduoduo needs to negotiate.

Those who grabbed a large number of coupons actually stole Pinduoduo’s assets through the glitch and should be held criminally responsible. Since the glitch was maliciously exploited, those involved in this act can be held on criminal charges.

Jinan Times): According to Alibaba, in 2018, hundreds of professional illegal chains were active online. They were involved in various illegal acts, such as registering false accounts, exchanging and trading in illegal technologies, phishing, spreading malware and stealing others’ accounts. The Pinduoduo incident is not only a corporate cybersecurity crisis but also a crisis of individuals’ personal information security.

Today, you are standing by and reading this news and probably tomorrow, your personal information will be leaked. So we hope that this incident will be properly handled through legal channels. As for the public, they need to stop speculating online for gaining petty advantages.

Chang Sha ( Xu Gang ( Let the law act Ouyang Chenyu ( www. thepaper. cn):

Those who benefited from Pinduoduo’s glitch see these coupons as a stroke of