China students are giving 1-star ratings to DingTalk in hope to make it disappear

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When the COVID-19 outbreak was rampant in China, the students were told to stay at home but still had to attend classes online via DingTalk, an app by Alibaba Group's and things got pretty hilarious from there. The app has gotten 1-star reviews over the few weeks and now after a month, the story is far from over and DingTalk is fighting for its life.

Since China likes to keeps things to themselves (heh, commies), DingTalk apparently released an apology video for the students who bomb-reviewed their app online. We aren't sure how this got approved, but it was filled with memes and a rather lame catchy song about forgiving and giving them a chance for better ratings. According to sources, it's said that DingTalk have already got over 15,000 1-star reviews and 2,000 5-star reviews in February. Reason? All because of a rumour that if an app gets low rating enough, it would be removed from the app store. Of course, that is yet to be proven as the app is still online.

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The apology video from DingTalk

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The hilarious 1-star rating and comments on the China Apple App Store for DingTalk

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The apology video seemed to work, as some students actually did give in with a 5-star review trying to balance it. Moreover, DingTalk CEO, Chen Hang, said he couldn't really blame the kids for giving them low reviews. He said "If I were in their shoes and had to take online lessons every day, I would probably give a one-star review too”. We have to say, we think it's a smart move by the company to respond with humour even though it's so cringe-worthy.

As of 27 February, the app climbed back up to 2.6 stars from 1.4 stars. It will take awhile to reach back to 4.9 stars, though. It has been reported that Japan has also just started exploring and using DingTalk, as the schools are closed until the end of March as ordered by the government.

It's an interesting phenomenon to see how a virus can cause such a chain reaction to force us to cancel events and even affecting apps like removing Plague Inc. Until now, stay tuned for more trending tech news at TechNave.com.