Meituan Denies Dianping V8 Users Extorted Free Meals, Says Videos Staged

The reputational risk here cuts both ways: Meituan is pushing back on a viral narrative that undermines trust in Dianping's review system, but its defense rests largely on merchants not responding, which leaves the claim unresolved rather than closed. The detail about Lv8 and new users carrying identical review weighting matters more than the staging allegation, since it quietly addresses the perception that elite reviewers wield outsized leverage over merchants. Whether Meituan provides more verifiable evidence, and whether merchants corroborate or contradict its account, is the open question.