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It's A Click Farm World: 1 Million Followers Cost $600 And The State Department Buys 2 Million Facebook Likes
Recently, Facebook got into hot water with investors when it was revealed that as many of its 1.18 billion active users 14.1 million (and likely orders of magnitude more) were fraudulent. Things are even worse at Twitter, where Italian security researchers Andrea Stroppa and Carlo De Micheli found that of the social network's 232 million monthly active users about 20 million are fake and for sale, while Jason Ding of Barracuda Labs said 10% of more of all Twitter accounts are fake.
Welcome to the world of click farms, where nothing is what it seems, and where social networking participants spend millions of dollars to appear more important, followed, prestigious, cool, or generally "liked" than they really are.
Social networking has been the "it" thing for a while: for the networks it makes perfect sense because they are merely the aggregators and distributors of terrabytes of free, third party created content affording them multi-billion dollar valuations without generating a cent in profits (just think of the upside potential in having 10 times the world's population on any given publicly-traded network), while for users it provides the opportunity to be seen, to be evaluated or "liked" on one's objective, impartial merits and to maybe go "viral", potentially making money in the process. Of course, the biggest draws of social networks also quickly became their biggest weaknesses, and it didn't take long to game the weakest link: that apparent popularity based on the size of one's following or the number of likes, which usually translates into power and/or money, is artificial and can be purchased for a price.
But it is not only sport stars with chips on their shoulder, or fading move and music gods who are willing to dish out in order to get the fake adoration and fake fans: as the AP reports, In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers. In one case, its fan tally rose to more than 2.5 million from about 10,000.
Various other, more expected account "paddings" come from a recent check on Facebook showed Dhaka was the most popular city for many, including soccer star Lionel Messi, who has 51 million likes; Facebook's own security page, which has 7.7 million likes; and Google's Facebook page, which has 15.2 million likes.
Again: no surprise. AP summarizes it as follows: "Since Facebook launched almost 10 years ago, users have sought to expand their social networks for financial gain, winning friends, bragging rights and professional clout. And social media companies cite the levels of engagement to tout their value."
Sadly, for increasingly more participants, it is all a game of illusions. An Associated Press examination has found a growing global marketplace for fake clicks, which tech companies struggle to police. "Online records, industry studies and interviews show companies are capitalizing on the opportunity to make millions of dollars by duping social media. For as little as a half cent each click, websites hawk everything from LinkedIn connections to make members appear more employable to Soundcloud plays to influence record label interest. "Anytime there's a monetary value added to clicks, there's going to be people going to the dark side," said Mitul Gandhi, CEO of seoClarity, a Des Plaines, Ill., social media marketing firm that weeds out phony online engagements."
What is the source of this social networking fakery? One place is Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city of 7 million in South Asia, and an international hub for click farms.
The CEO of Dhaka-based social media promotion firm Unique IT World said he has paid workers to manually click on clients' social media pages, making it harder for Facebook, Google and others to catch them. "Those accounts are not fake, they were genuine," Shaiful Islam said.
A recent check on Facebook showed Dhaka was the most popular city for many, including soccer star Leo Messi, who has 51 million likes; Facebook's own security page, which has 7.7 million likes; and Google's Facebook page, which has 15.2 million likes.
What is worse, the cost of fake fame is so low, virtually everyone does it:
BuyPlusFollowers sells 250 Google+ shares for $12.95. InstagramEngine sells 1,000 followers for $12. AuthenticHits sells 1,000 SoundCloud plays for $9.
It's a lucrative business, said the president and CEO of WeSellLikes.com.
"The businesses buy the Facebook likes because they're afraid that when people go to their Facebook page and they only see 12 or 15 likes, they're going to lose potential customers," he said. The company official spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he recently moved his company offshore to avoid litigation or cease-and-desist notices.
In Indonesia, a social media-obsessed country with some of the largest number of Facebook pages and Twitter users, click farms proliferate.
Ali Hanafiah, 40, offers 1,000 Twitter followers for $10 and 1 million for $600. He owns his own server, and pays $1 per month per Internet Protocol address, which he uses to generate thousands of social media accounts.
The bottom line is simple "The illusion of a massive following is often just that," said Tony Harris, who does social media marketing for major Hollywood movie firms, said he would love to be able to give his clients massive numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but buying them from random strangers is not very effective or ethical.
And once the prevailing users of social networks grasp that one of the main driving features of the current social networking fad du jour is nothing but a big cash scam operating out of a basement in the far east, expect both Facebook and shortly thereafter, Twitter, to go the way of 6 Degrees, Friendster and MySpace, only this time the bagholders will be the public. Because "it is never different this time." The only certain thing: someone will promptly step in to replace any social network that quietly fades into the sunset.
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This thread devolves into an argument over the quality of Kim Khardashian's tits in 3, 2, 1...
This thread makes my day complete.
Faux Economy, FTMFW!!!
As for one Kim, well, I don't think tits are the metric anyone is questioning.
Argumentative enough?
When the IMF directly responds to your articles... you have ascended slightly above click-bait. Slightly. So don't go getting a big head about it.
Ethics? Ethics???
No wonder scumbags like Obozo make it to POTUS.
Free Corzine damnit!
"equities" "market"
"twitter" "followers"
"facebook" "update"
"linkedin" "notification"
"bond" "purchases"
computer talking to computer
we are merely bystanders
Isn't facebook that "girls" social site??
I would pay $10 for 1000 squeezes of kim's tits
I'll go $11. Your move.
Thought I should mention the Romney campaign was also buying followers and likes.
I'd rather have a tulip vs a click
I will not let that fraudulent hobbit occupy the minds of men! In other words, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
Whatever happened to telling your pal, "hey, I like ya very much, alright. You remember that."?
Because clicking is brainless...perfect for mindless zombies that they've created.
.
Independent thinking is a dying art...
A metaphor for life on this planet. It is hard to tell what is real.
Their fiction is the reality...
The market cap of XOM is about 430 billion. Steel rigs, ships, refineries, trucks, etc. Facebook market cap is 140 billion.
WTF?
Why should facebook be worth a dollar? A single dollar? I don't get it.
Because it lets the TPTB watch the sheeple. Also, the boomers put their 401(k) into something. I'm still living off my pets.com dividends...
Yousa playa!
What's a "dollar?"
Rectangular piece of cotton paper that currently holds value but will shortly be better used as bung wipes when the value declines precipitously.
An unbacked credit obligation from a questionably solvent entity.
FB is the solicitation. The real money comes from the services (and techno-gadgets). They're all one big entity (working for the NSA).
XOM spends 40 million a year on advertising.
what is complicated here.
I deleted my facebook account when I found out that they will use the photos that you upload any time any where for any reason, without my permission.
AOL did the same thing in the 1990's this is nothing new. As long as idiots put a lot of importance on "eyeballs" this stuff will happen
They all did the same thing in the 90,s which will end with the same result, but this time will be exceptionally worse
All that money created out of thin air had to go SOMEWHERE, and the recipients of it (not placing a lot of value on that which they receive for free or close to it) spend it frivolously. In the late 90s it was dot com stocks, mid 2000s real estate, today it's the social networking fad. A fad, which incidentally is changing right before Zuckerberg's eyes. My tween and young teen daughters would no more use FB than a dial telephone. "That's so yesterday, Dad." So the hip factor is gone and soon FB will be priced like AOL after the dot com collapse....not dead, but not worth very much either.
I thought of AOL when I read the article, too. What a big star that company was! Now it's about as relevant and well known as MySpace. The same fate awaits today's fads. They'll be all but forgotten in time.
A few more C-64s and 300 BAUD Modems will punch up their numbers! ....any day now...
10 print "Respect the Commodore!"
20 goto 10
30 end
run
All the ad fees are based on number of clicks.
FAKE. FAKE. FAKE. Sorry Jerry
How do you define "fake"? My neighbor's cat and dog have Facebook profiles and are constantly sending me videos and links, are they "fake" profiles? Someone's looking at the ads, that's all that matters.
Your neighbors and their very unfortunate animals are fake...narcissistic too. What did Mr Bigglesworth and Milo post today?
I know this piece of steak is not real.
Steak not real? Have you eaten any chicken lately? No taste and has a spongelike texture. Never buying that garbage again
Started buying the local free-range chickens back about 4 years ago along with eggs and let me tell you I ain't never going back. The difference in the taste, color, and even the thickness of the chicken's eggs was amazing. Hard to believe I ate that McCrap for so long. Same goes for local beef, pork, cthullu, whatever.
Mnn but the TPTB tell me it is juicy and delicious.
.... I know when I put this steak in my mouth the matrix is telling me it is juicy and declicious.....
.... When you put me back in the matrix I want to be somebody important.... like an actor....
.... Ignorance is bliss....
Digital fiat, digital gold, digital popularity; hell we even have a movie with some schmuk falling in love with a computer.
AI = Politicians? Hollywood? ...
Is everything fake? BLS numbers, Fakebook hits, twitter "fans", ACA enrollees.....everything is just fake.
Lips, tits and apparently twats (it's a Chinese certificate-of-virginity thing).
I'm just waiting -and banking - on the reconstructed assholes.
Long sphincters
It's the unreconstructed assholes you have to worry about...
"Is everything fake? BLS numbers, Fakebook hits, twitter "fans", ACA enrollees.....everything is just fake."
No, not everything. That enormous ice block in antartica is quite real.
And goddamn motherfucking hilarious with those jackass "scientists" stuck in it.
Sometimes you have to take advantage of those opportunities to laugh your fucking ass off.
The irony is too sweet. And quite real.
PETA will sue, if you try to take Fido's twitter account away. :)
Almost everything that comes out of people's mouths is fake, including the thoughts and opinions of your own family members. In fact, especieally family members!
And even your own feelings are mostly based on deception with the aid of self-delusion, so the very things you feel are also not real.
Life is a weird dream within a fake dream and then you die.
{grabs numerous towels and car keys and slowly saunters to the garage}
"You never trust the people you love"
Tuco Salamanca
Well said. Add in collusion and coersion, and you have covered about all that goes on in the world today.
I just got blocked by the Danish PM
I told you! No more selfies!!
Mochelle-her-wookiness is PISSED!
Cock-blocked by a Danish hottie. Hate when that happens. Your first time for this sort of problem? You'll get past it.
Do you have any other blockages worth sharing?
Buddy: Hang around here for a couple years and poison your mind with, well, whatever water you like to drink.
Don't be shy BuddyEffed newbie. Show us your tits. You're not even a month old.
You assume a lot. I've been around the block, and didn't just fall off the turnip wagon. I've observed for a while. I can recall Trav777 if that dates me.
This is Fight Club, but I'm not punching you in the face. I was actually say "Hi".
and so was I.
No offense meant. None taken! - quote from Josey Wales
Buddy: Trav attempted a come back last year using the same logo and name with one less 7 in it. He lasted for a short time and was "disappered" again. Too bad... I always love reading the radical posters but they seem to be disappearing.
"Are ya gonna draw them pistols or whistle Dixie"? (paraphrase, can't recall the actual line).
Umm, in (get me) High School we always referred to getting laid as "getting blocked".
Edit: Ya know, putting the "blocks" to h'er...
Now William, right here and now, won't you please give her a good reason to block you?
From Jeremiah Johnson --
...a tribe's greatness is figured on how mighty its enemies be.
Send her one of these... :>D
If you cannot sell your agenda collectively or via bi partisan, buy advertisement to foster the feeble mind set.
/LOL
OK, so I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what the dirty little operation here is between Facebook and the State Department. Is it that Zuckerberg promotes Obama's policies and Obama makes sure he gets clicks through his site? Or does Facebook even make money when click farms hit them two million times? I guess the shorter question here is: who is making money off this deal? (We know who's losing money - the taxpayer.)
V
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets. - Napoleon Bonaparte
https://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/
You just started! I look forward to your writings brother.
I might as well share my site:
www.rinseandrepeat.org
I'll let you know when it does something useful, i.e. when the r&r simpleblog service goes up. One of my best homies gots more than a few stories to share. You (and a giant squad of ZHers) are more than welcome to open blogs there when it goes live.
Here's my newest piece,
https://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/banking-for-bums-and-husl...
rinse and repeat. its got a certain ring to it. The logo's not bad either
It's what most of our lives amount to, rinse and repeat, day in day out. The goal is to break out of the vicious cycle, but the only way to do it is to rinse and repeat motherfucker, one last time, but the right way. That's the motivation behind the idea, to do shit right the first time so you won't have to rinse and repeat at all. As for the logo, it's the first one I ever made. The golden (Fibonnacci) spiral is a beautiful thing, and one of the first sketches my homie made was an r with a golden spiral. Shit is class. There will be cooler logos when he gets a computer set up and learns gimp. For now, time and money are not our side.
I like the latest post a lot. Hustlacoins all day (even as a 'closed-minded BTC hating fuckwit,' I agree with you 1000 percent).
Thanks, Nemwn inspired me to write this after he really pissed me off on a different thread.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-05/resilient-bitcoin-surges-above-...
Few things piss me off more than stereotyping and willful ignorance. As "a fucking bum on the street corner" I want people to know its easy to criticize when you've never been there. But people who've never lived it really don't have a clue whats its like.
Break out of the cycle my friend more power to you.
I always told people not to be on facebook. Being an amateur conspiracy theorist I figured it was some sort of a data collection front end for the FBI/CIA/NSA. Said the same about most of Google's cloud technologies. That was crazy talk...........maybe not so much after all...........
How much delusional, self-importance do ya gotta possess to think the Universe gives a first thought (never mind a second!) about you?
We waste money on some stupid shit, but this is pretty god damn depressing. We are spending tax payer dollars so arms of govt can have lots of twitter followers and look like people actually care and agree with what each department is doing. It's pretty sad when our govt has devolved into a teen age girl that wants to feel popular.
"Teenage girl that wants to feel popular"
Thems are the easiest to lay!
As my pappy used to say, "a pretty girl knows you're lying; an ugly girl won't until the mornin' "
Consensus building and opinion shaping is and always has been a key component of perception management. Read Bernay's "Propaganda" (1926), a superb book that has never gone out of print and along with "Brave New World" and "1984" represent the most precient works of the 20th century.
It's sad when the government needs to fake support. "See! People do support our desire to tap their phones and shoot their dogs and shit!"
Fake is all that's left, Spungo. People need to believe in something. Even if they have nothing, they'll invent something to believe in.
Hmm, I believe I'll have another beer!
Let me tweak that statement a bit. Wait until Hillary begins her mission. Dodging all the Obama cow pies are going to be fun.
You can include those telephone calls you hear on the subway or bus.
They did a study a few years back and found that 20% of people heard talking loud into their phone while on public transit, weren't talking to anybody on the other end of that phone.
How much for 10,000 zero hedge votes?
I junked you. Tyler is beyond reproach.
And I junked you. Fuck this feels good. I'm going to play with my junk.
Edit: I junked all over myself.
And if we aren't narcissistic enough:
CES 2014: Sony shows off life logging app and kithttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25633647
My wife had recently clipped a comic out of the paper. It was of a couple of vultures standing over a road-kill, with one of them taking pictures to post; the other vulture was saying that the one taking the picture need not take pictures of every meal!
I think that we're so far off course that there's no hope of ever making it back alive...
Not bad. I prefer the Farside version. Two vultures standing over roadkill. One says to the other "Whew! Thank goodness for ketchup!"
That's what you got, baby. Roadkill. You can eat it with or without ketchup. But it's still roadkill either way.
They would get more facebook likes just by having a girl post a picture with the comment "so bored today"
Plus 1:
Like this?
Minus 1:
Or like this?
How dare you sheep question the value of this 1# social media stock. Shame on you. Doomberg has told me otherwise, I plan on purchasing 100,000 shares tomorrow.
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s market value passed $100 billion amid optimism that the world’s largest social network can bolster sales from mobile advertising.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/facebook-market-value-tops-100-billion-amid-mobile-ad-push.html
/sarc
Tweeter is losing money, I do not know about Fuckbook. What, 10$ of revenue last year?
At least Bath House excused them from Taxes.
That's Nothing:
Sigh: FaceBook's market cap briefly passed $100 trillion. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/facebook-pulls-reverse-bats-flash-smashes-...
From the landed serfs of ancestral Europe, to the coal mines of Appalachia to the click farms of Neo Asia... feudalism will not die until we plant a fucking stake in its heart once and for all.
The Federal Reserve will get you 30 trillion likes, interest free, & they'll loan U the money too!
Wonder where the SEC is on this? Does it matter?
Meanwhile the NorCal Tesla farm is chugging away at a fair clip.
It's just fiunnq0=rnj,u9qwerh-9rbzi[p jfk aognruiogqeruio-ng-FAGGG
WHY DOES THIS SHIT LAG WHEN I TYPE SHIT. OLE JAMIES GONNA FUCK HIM A WHITE WOMAN TONIGHT
Looks like Barry is going to do a Face-plant in the Shitter.
LMFAO
Had to be said. Fuck you Barry you lying piece of shit.
Bath House Barry is a click farm.
The largest investment by American serfs in flyover country is guns n ammo.
Our world is already fake. It was fake from the minute we inhabitated the planet. There is a certain amount of irony that another level of fakeness is being created digitally within our existing hologram.
I think it all took a nose dive with money and banking. A necessary evil perhaps, but it's still fake. So, how much money do i need to exist in this world? That's fucked up right there.
Maybe not money, just banking.
Horrah for BTC and heavy metal!
Personally, I'm long abacus and cowries.
I long ago found out that unless one is famous, the secret for a large following in Twitter is to follow a lot of regular people: in simple terms, if one gives an average Joe or Jane a follow, he or she tends to reciprocate (in fact, one could do a small program to automate the process, which would unfollow after a month or so).
Of course, the other side of following tons of people is getting tons of meaningless stuff in one's feed: you can't really "follow" everything every one of 100+ posters says on Twitter, hence at that point it's just a race for getting a "higher score" as measured by number of followers.
Me, I follow a tiny number of people and do pay attention to most of what they say (although I might unfollow @zerohedge since it mostly saturates my feed with junk).
"The greatest form of control is a prison without bars." http://shutupnsing.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/watch-12-angry-men-again/
Fake social popularity.
Fake GDP numbers.
Fake unemployment numbers.
Fake inflation rate.
Fake recovery.
Fake terror threats.
Fake news.
Fake rice.
Fake money.
Got precious metals?
This is meaningless gibberish to me.
Although I did enjoy the FB post of a woman describing to a friend her blowjob technique on a new beau when a horrified daughter reminded her that this particular conversation was not private and that there was a good possibilty her husband would read it along with the rest of the universe.
That was one funny "Oh Shit!"
FB Fails is Lolcats for stupid humans and stupid humans can be quite entertaining in a sadly pathetic sort of way.
http://www.bigbendbikersforfreedom.com/2012/05/free-facebook-stock-take-...
May 22, 1912
fat finger
Fraud is a Fraud is a Fraud!
Fraud is Criminal.
I am bombed with spam email wanting to sign me up to do those fake clicks. Money sounds pretty good at $200 to $2000 a week for a no brainier job. I read the reviews and again I don't know if they are real or fake on the sites promoting this but the folks doing it said they were very happy with the money they are making for a brainless job..real easy:)
In addition one person said it's all Fortune 500 companies that pay them and that makes the fake clickers really identify with who they are clicking for...seriously you can't make this up. Maybe I'm stupid for not jumping in here:)
By the way, look at Facebook's new partner in financing a start up to teach more how to code in the UK..none other than Barclays Bank, so why does Facebook partner with them? They all want cheap code..my blog post tells a bit more and I reiterate the week end bust for Barlcalys on selling the confidential client information in the same post which you folks covered here.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/02/barclays-brokers-caught-selling.html
They all sell data today, don't they...Facebook doesn't need Barclays to finance a start up teach code company...hmmm...I can bet there's a lot more to it than I even I caught with wanting to be able to buy cheap code instead of developing it in house...
PBS..Feb 18, special..."the Like Generation"..trailer looks good as they are going to hit the money side of it.
Here's a new layer on the social networks and the idea not new, Google has kicked it around but you give this service access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts AND a feed of your charge card records..WTF
It's in beta and has 1500 suckers right now..but the sale is that you will be able to control who buys what part of your data...and you are paid $8 for that..while the other side makes millions and billions selling your data..there's a sucker born every second..
I'm look at this page and I'm thinking being I used to write code is the ultimate screw you to see how many stupid people will bite?
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/02/one-more-data-seller-in-beta-you-...
It's an attitude that coders get and I had to watch too a little when I spent a lot of days in front of a computer screen writing code without a visit to the real world..one visit away from your computer and you are cured or at least I was but you take in enough reading from the internet without a break and your gets a little goofy and you need that break to make sure you cut the syndrome quickly. I think thee guys at this post are a little egotistic and might be just looking at how many they can sucker in...bad.