miHoYo v. Bilibili Case Opens on August 19: Behind the Lawsuit, a Coddled "Clickbait Ecosystem"
On August 19, 2026, an unfair competition dispute will be heard at the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court—the plaintiff is one of China’s most profitable game companies, and the defendant is the country’s largest anime community. Case number: (2026) Hu 0115 Min Chu 71529.
But more worth documenting than the lawsuit’s outcome is the long-coddled ecosystem it exposes: a platform that preaches purification while thriving on traffic generated by clickbait.
The Phenomenon: The Lawsuit Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
Let’s first clarify the objective facts of this lawsuit (all publicly available):
- Cause of action: Unfair competition dispute (not the previous copyright/reputation rights).
- Defendant: Two operating companies affiliated with Bilibili. (Note: Several individuals are also named, but this article does not discuss individual defendants—making judgments about individuals in pending litigation carries legal risks, and individuals are just cogs in the system.)
- Background: This is not the first time miHoYo and Bilibili have faced off in court. Years ago, miHoYo filed seven consecutive copyright lawsuits against Bilibili, widely seen in the industry as a move to obtain real-name information of involved accounts through judicial proceedings.
This time, the cause of action has escalated to “unfair competition,” which carries heavier penalties and higher compensation caps (the 2025 revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law sets statutory damages at up to 10 million yuan, with punitive damages). However, multiple industry insiders point out: the lawsuit’s real target may not be the platform itself.
More than “who wins this lawsuit,” the key question is: Why did a platform allow this ecosystem to grow to a point where litigation is needed to clean it up?
Analysis: A Complete “Leak-Hype-Slander” Routine
Stripping away legal jargon, what Bilibili has been criticized for over the years is a structured black-market routine. It’s not isolated user violations, but a clearly divided industrial chain.
Leak: Leaked Content as “Ammunition”
Unofficial game test content is cracked, edited into “spoiler” videos, and uploaded. This content serves as the “ammunition” for everything that follows—exclusive intel creates information asymmetry and narrative control.
Hype: Industrialized Production of Clickbait Accounts
This is the most noteworthy part of the routine. A typical clickbait account specimen looks like this:
| Dimension | Typical Behavior |
|---|---|
| Lifespan | About 100 days, then account deleted, clean exit |
| Output Intensity | ~76 videos in 100 days, two-thirds inciting conflict |
| Traffic Allocation | Single video up to millions of views, thousands of comments |
| Activity Window | Precisely covers periods of controversy around competitor launches/updates |
| Account Traits | Locked follows, deleted creation history, almost no normal comment/bullet chat records |
This is not the trajectory of a normal creator. It looks more like a task-oriented promotional account—concentrating on creating divisive content during specific windows, then disappearing, leaving a stirred-up user base to keep resonating.
Slander: Selective Enforcement as a Shield
If it were just clickbait accounts, one could blame lax moderation. But the more critical observation is selective enforcement:
- The same type of violating content: content targeting Company A is swiftly removed, while content targeting Company B survives long-term;
- Large-scale organized attacks (e.g., uploading thousands of violating images in the comment section of an official account with 20 million followers) go unpunished for over a day;
- Meanwhile, normal rebuttal content is reported and taken down for “mentioning names” or “lacking rigor.”
Year after year, they issue purification announcements, yet year after year, the industry is plagued by clickbait. They catch a few insignificant accounts to save face, but no one dares to criticize the main enablers of this crooked trend.
The Audience and the Cost: Young People as Traffic Fodder
The real cost of this ecosystem is borne by Bilibili’s large young user base.
Influential accounts pump out massive amounts of misleading and divisive information online each year. This is a clear harm to young people’s mental health—they are incited to hate a game, to hate a group of players, while these emotions often serve nothing more than some account’s KPIs and someone’s commercial interests.
User habits, vested interests, account-building tactics… all have been cultivated. Dislodging this entrenched interest network is incredibly difficult. But precisely because it’s hard, it deserves to be documented and identified.
How to Identify This Kind of Routine
Here are a few criteria for readers to identify this “coddled clickbait ecosystem”:
- Look at the account’s lifespan. Normal creators build up over time; clickbait accounts have a short cycle, high intensity, precise coverage of controversy periods, then vanish. Seeing a trajectory of “100 days, 76 conflict-inciting videos, then account deletion” is a clear sign.
- Look at the platform’s enforcement consistency. The same violation is handled at vastly different speeds for different targets—this isn’t a moderation capability issue, it’s selective enforcement. Who is protected, who is allowed to run wild, becomes clear.
- Look at the direction of the emotion. Normal content criticizes specific issues; clickbait content aims to create group antagonism (“X players vs. Y players”). If you suddenly feel intense hostility towards a group of strangers, first ask yourself who fed you that emotion.
- Look at who benefits long-term. Clickbait accounts are consumables, but the entities they serve benefit long-term. Follow the chain of interest upwards, and the answer is often simple.
Conclusion
How the August 19 lawsuit will be decided is up to the court. But as ordinary users, what we can do is see through this coddled routine and not be easily manipulated into becoming someone else’s traffic fodder.
If a platform issues purification announcements while thriving on clickbait traffic, then its “purification” is just PR spin. The real purification of the environment never comes from announcements, but from individuals who learn to identify the tricks and refuse to be used as pawns.
References (Citation Standards):
- Publicly available lawsuit information from Qichacha (case number, cause of action, hearing date)
- Priority given to archive.today / Wayback Machine snapshots to preserve clickbait accounts/violating content scenes
- No unblurred personal social media accounts posted; this article does not discuss individual defendants in pending litigation