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A Walkthru Explaining Facebook's "Millions" Of Fake Users
A month ago we explained in gory detail the growth 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. The following excellent walk-through of just how the fraud works is concerning when the entire US stock market appears propped up by an ever-shrinking layer of "social media" and "cloud" faith that this time it's different and no Friendster or MySpace.
As we noted previously,
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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.
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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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you...you mean.. you can BUY fake users/followers???
O M G
I am glad I never signed up.
fonestar thought all those beautiful women were waiting to meet him? Always sent to some other website?
Can I buy likes with these stranded Bitcoins?
lol @ Facebook!
Facebook and Twitter are both high grade scams, with probably as many as 25% and 50% of their alleged "users" being some form/variation of bots, respectively.
When the NASDAQ leads the next bleed out in the equity markets (as it has for the last 3 meltdowns), these two ticker symbols will be in "heavy flow" menstruation.
A little off topic but I once rebuilt a KX 250 while it was running, through the exhaust pipe with a pair of those long needle nose pliers you use for getting a fish hook out of the fishes mouth.
My point is if you have a social media account, fill it with so much bullshit and nonsense that the whole spy/CIA system gets watered down and slowly becomes irrelevant. Do your part.
Is there anything that isn't a Ponzi anymore?
the friends are rehypothecated
++ Best in Short Comment catagory. Congratulations.
You mean to tell me those 300 million "friends" of Beeber are...fake?!
Screw that clown...aren't 99% of the White House Fraudbook and Twit accounts bogus?! Democracy in itself is self-destructive, but astroturfed democracy and astroturfed populism in a republic-in-name-only is hilariously insane!
If facebook was like zerohedge there would be dislikes as well as likes. A bet a lot of companies don't want to hear about the dislikes.
Human reproduction is a Ponzi by itself.
Bookmark this....in the end this will be exposed.for faud 10x that of enron.....where are the auditors!
does that chik with the great ass Jen something have a FB account? then maybe i will "sign up" or whatever they call it, just to see more pics of her ass but i dont think I will be a good click-thru-ad-spend-sticky-metric-user-etc.
yes, you can, check it out yourself you can buy fb likes and google's pluses here 0.005$ each. It's so stable, it's traded as an alternative currency alongside bitcoin, litecoin, namecoin and others.
@fonestar - "fonestar thought all those beautiful women were waiting to meet him? Always sent to some other website?"
Cheer up mate. Maybe you can start using click farms to start buying up arrows on your Bitcoin drivel.
Click bitch farms. Yep!
Goldman would never be involved in a fraud!
People have no loyalty to free services, or even paid ones. Fad is king. As Swedish lead guitarist Skwisgaar tells Norwegian rhythm guitarist Toki in the cartoon Metalocalypse,
"The audience ams a fickles mistress, Toki. The audience ams a fickles mistress!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qpe2em3fk
Institute even a $2 per month fee to use Facebook and 90% of whatever actual, carbon-based life forms it has as "users" would bail instantly.
That's how its (lack of) value should be regarded.
Metalocalypse is so over the top at times, but "The Boondocks" really, really sinks some fangs in race relations!
Facebook is now worth more than Verizon, AT&T, CISCO and Disney. Its closing in on IBM.
Everyone I know who used to use it all the time have basically abandoned it, which is pretty typical for these things.
My teenagers have abandoned it.
Re: My teenagers have abandoned it.
Abandoned? Or can't admit to using it.
What are they using instead? Humans need a facebook like device to find each other for sex and to show off their bling. We might end-up with a young facebook for the sex and a post-sex facebook for the adults with kids; but eventually there will just be one Facebook like device.
My cat JEdgar stopped posting on his Facebook page a few months ago after discovering kitty porn. Note his expression when I read him this article concerning fake accounts.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2nolAS2neVI/Tab5eiEaKMI/AAAAAAAAArI/qh6pYGODEJ...
Block icanhas.cheezburger.com if you haven't already (you probably did), because JEdgar will be fapping 24/7 if he finds it.
My daughter only uses facebook to play "Candy Crush" and some game where plants kill zombies. I'm reminded of a spot on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" tapes where Zaphod and Rooster use a body debit card to go to a discotheque (and thus escape from the frogstar):
Rooster: "There aren't any real people here at all!" (he exclaimed after finding out the disco was populated by androids)
Zaphod: "So what eles is new?"
That's it! Fuckbook....I'm starting a new social networking site today!
I deactivated my FaceBook account...didn't see any value in it.
My oldest dog, however, does have an account.
ZH for arguing with strangers an FB for the cat pics.
I have a facebuck acct. that I never signed up for. I have never even been on FB although my daughters tell me that I have many Friends.
About time Tyler. I hate to give market ticker credit for running story days ago.
veritasium and pointless clicking seems to go together as both are ddumb
My personal favorite about internet fakery was this:
"For every video he watches, Angle gets 0.00004 bitcoins, or about half a cent, thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips. He can watch up to 12 videos a day, which gets him to about six cents.* And he can beef up this daily take with Bitcoin Tapper, a mobile app that doles out about 0.000133 bitcoins a day — a couple of pennies — if he just taps on a digital icon over and over again. Like the YouTube service, this app isn’t exactly the height of internet sophistication — it seeks to capture your attention so it can show you ads — but for Angle, it’s a good way to keep himself fed."
Its wrong on so many levels but it was presented to me as a "societal good"...using the homeless to throw advertising at you, is good, you see? ;-)
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/09/bitcoin-homeless/
So Facebook is social QE?
Sorry, Farcebook.
So Facebook gives me the boot (several years back) and says I am not a real person, but allows all these fake accounts? Then if indeed Facebook does operate like the Fed, that would make me a barbarous relic. Nice.
An (e.g.) 1/10 cent payment connected to the current Like button (whether it was credited to the likee or something else*) would stop the Facebook Fraud problem by making them non-viable for clickfarms.. and still not seriously impact the original button's usability?
*for instance a user could designate a charity recipient for his likes
P.S. Also entirely alters campaign finance and advocacy
Represented by Perkins Coie
Characteristics of the Monied "Like" Button
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2013/12/characteristics-of-monied-l...
One-Click Micropayment Capability for Volume Solicitations and Multiple Providers
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2013/12/one-click-micropayment-capa...
This is best accomplished as an interbank system similar to ClearXChange... except this entity will NOT be owned or controlled by the banks but as an independent utility... preferably under some sort of user-owned co-op design.
Disagree. At some point a device becomes ubiquitous; which will happen when it becomes too painful to switch to something else.
The telephone became ubiquitous, the 4'8" railroad gauge became ubiquitous. Why? Just because it was easiest at that point in time. Facebook could be the 4'8" railroad gauge (Or not) but something WILL be.
And I respectfully disagree, if not on the fact that people are already getting sick of it, then on the fact that the business model is completely different. Social media is free to users and dependent on generating revenue from other sources, such as advertisers. Ask people to pay to use FB and watch how quickly it goes away (I, and most of the people I know, barely use it now and wouldn't pay even a dollar a year to use it). And as more advertisers wake up to the fact that people don't see the ads, don't click on the ads, and if they do happen to stop their eyeballs on the ads, are annoyed by them, they will stop throwing their money away.
Personally, I couldn't care less about 99% of what's on my news feed, and therefore find myself using it less and less. Twitter has basically given a microphone to everyone in the world and the noise is deafening, so I choose not to engage in that non-sense, either. There just isn't a viable business model for these things, unless people want to pay to use them, and I don't know many who would.
I don't think you are comparing apples to apples. It wasn't painful to leave myspace and go to facebook.
Facebook has like nineteen billion active users.
lol.
Glad you're getting hip, Buzz..., but about your maff...
WoW, thats like 9 yellen bucks a user, market cap wise.
Makes cents to me.
The real decline is due to weather..
This is why some of have been so negative with hoody zuckerfuck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGdWsxHJlM&sns=em
Everyone go and like Virtual Cat now. Lets blow this guy's mind!
O.K. I'll say it....Fakebook. Where you can feel popular, even though you have the personality of a yak.
The paid likes is a big problem too. So long as ad budgets are huge, this won't be a problem.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag
A great ad for Vertasium. Well done Derek. Sun Tzu would be proud.
Great video. Facebook advertising is very low ROI. But big advertisers think with a big marketing campaign think you have to allocate a certain % to social media, and right now that means FB or TWTR.
Good review. If I had an active FB page I would 'like' the FB Virtual Cat, and maybe engage - but I don't.
ZH is my Facebook.
I think YELP is the best of breed in this nonsense. They have a $5 billion market cap for a site that reviews restaurants. And worse, they've already been sued several times and "pay" their top reviewers, the ones who review the most. Even though illegal to pay them, they give them "prizes", etc.
They're all scams but isn't Wall Street in general?
LinkedIn and Angies List are not terrible along with the other real estate sites like Zillow and Loopnet. I am not saying they are great but they are not total scams like FaceBook.
Yelp reviews other stuff. No way it is worth $5 billion but it is probably more useful than FaceBook. Facebook appears to be used by old ladies and 36 to 50 year old divorcee narcissists and guys trying to hit on them.
Kids and normal people not so much.
I've always been at a loss to determine what could be done with social media that can't be done with one's own private, slightly taylored email account. Methinks the "facebook" simply allows the Naven R. Johnsons of the internet age to feel like somebody.
Hahah yeah even though I have accounts on this social media things, it's more about people wanting to be superstars with the world. People can stumble upon, or go to their profile (if it's openly public). and see these kind of people. I never got into it frankly unlike a lot of people. I think it's overrated.
I've seen some facebook pages that indicate the person(s) are using it as a personal website (without all that tedious mucking about in html). I just checked my own website and the visitors counter is 6420. Most of those visits are my own!
http://www.frontiernet.net/~jimbot if anyone is interested.
I'm happy to report a precipitous decline in use among the people who keep dragging me into FB. I can't wait till it stops altogether. The good news is... the declne in use is happening at an accelerating rate. Can't come sooooooon enough.
I Like this post
Too bad about Faceplant but I actually use it for political reasons and mostly to make fun of them from things I learned on ZH. Every political operative uses FB so it is target practice for me if I want to take a shot at them. Obama has not friended me yet. Awww! That is because I don't clear my browser cache if I am only on ZH and FB at the same time. I think they are on to me.;-)
Obama and other 3 letter agencies most likely mine social media using engagement as a metric to determine how strongly connected a relationship is between user and page(s). Page(s) being a group, individual or cause. I'm sure they have a rating system using all 3. Paranoid people and groups love data mining to find political orientation among other things. Human dog training has taken on a whole new level with big data analytics and social media.
It is easy to skew that statistical measurement system. If people haven't noticed news especially headlines are being more and written by computer generated language algorithms. Ever notice how the dog training websites always have the same sentence structure and word types for articles like This guy slays yada yada in an epic fashion.
Here is an example of one.
Here are 20 essential facts dog lovers must always remember. The last one made me cry so much.They follow a certain structure and use certain synonyms over and over. They look like something written off a script that doesn't fit an english language second individual writing it.
There is no question that they data mine on FacePlant. That is why I leave ZH open when I go on there. I just want to see what pops up on the right side. The fact of the matter is that WANT the politicos to know that I read ZeroHedge. It is not about what I say, it is about what all of you have to say. I only do it to needle them a little bit more.
Hmm, well then, party on!
The best one out there is RA Williams with the picture of Shemp or someone with thick goggles. He used to post a lot on the NY Post articles and is really funny. He makes fun of O and libs. Stupid NY Post curtailed the reader responses which was the only reason to go there. People made fun of Bloomberg, Alec Baldwin and de Blasio.
Too funny.
Facefuck, soon to be Faceplant.
Adblock plus kill all the garbage you never need to see.
Indeed Adblock extensions for Firefox, and Chrome improved my standard of living.
Ghostery works well--- very well, although I wonder why it is free. I did send them ten bux once upon a time.
Confucious say "fun to bash facebook -try short then Joke on you now..."
The whole thing (FaceBook) is a govt op and they prop up the stock price. All ths tocks that do well are very friendly to the regime and probably donate tons of money so their stocks are "supported" with Fed money and probably cartel drug money in black bag ops.
Short them at your peril. They are like a Treasury Bond now.
I still get fake friend requests to my fake email junk folder from my fake FB page (created using a fake name and other bogus information from my fecund imagination).
I find it all quite annoying but mildly amusing and ironic. And yet, I've made considerable money trading real call spreads all the way from $36/share to the present ridiculous value. But I'm not crazy enough to be long (or short) the actual stock. You can't make money trading without a huge dose of hypocracy. (example, just cashed in my TSLA call spread today for a 178% gain for a hold time of 3 weeks).
Do you mean bull put spreads? TSLA (also shit scam company) has been on a tear. If you were trading bear call spreads you would be losing.
More proof we can't believe a damn thing including what is dished out by main stream media. Oh to the confident and suave television and news commentators, politicians, and the experts that speak with such authority, I include the pundits and so called specialist, to you I say, I'm skeptical and dubious.
I can see you now, your head a bobbing and your arms moving all around, you state your case with such brilliance and force that often we are swept away! The post below is in reference to all the pundits and so called experts, it is about all the words that spew from their mouths, about the reams of material they write, and the large quantity of often misstated facts they put forth.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/03/you-dont-know-that.html
Facebook Fraud - How Much of Facebook's Ad Revenue is Legitimate?
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/02/facebook-fraud-how-mu...
BTW if you go to the facebook page for Fight Club they mock this whole idea with a meme of you are not how many facebook likes you get.
https://www.facebook.com/FightClub
I hope you realize Tyler uses twatter, not farcebook. Google it!
I have a large /etc/hosts file (using Linux), that translates www.facebook.com into 127.0.0.1, so I can't even click on a link for www.facebook.com without the browser saying that the address is garbage.
Short this blow off top and make a mint as revenue estimates plummet.
So does this mean FB wont trade through 100 till this summer? I don't think I can handle it not going up at lease 5% per week.
Well, duh, there's a shitload of fake accounts. All those stupid little games were basically only winnable with loads of fake accounts, and no one wanted to spam their actual profiles with all that garbage either. Trolling on comments... yep, you're gonna use fake accounts. Buying "likes" in bulk is also a thing and has been for a damned long time. Even more pervasive now, as reality of ROI has been perverted. I shit you not, I have dealt with marketing campaigns where the idiots in charge managed to convince the purse-holders that "likes" count as ROI. Not sales, but merely "likes". Laughably thinking they are increasing awareness and therefore it's the same as ROI. As they blow through tens of thousands on these idiotic campaigns. Then when it's flopping and not working out as planned, they hire an agency to boost their "ROI". And all said agency has to do is dump a few hundred bucks to buy likes in bulk. And like magic, you can slap together a deck showing how great your little campaign is for the next board meeting. Need to generate mentions? Hook up with a botnet that retweets everything, and look at all that exposure! This is literally the basis of a few billion in spending every quarter and it's hilarious. Meanwhile, traditional research methods which have a long-proven history and track record of actually working, are being pushed to the side as the idiots are stepping in with their idiot ideas. That tracking study that's been on-going for the last 8 years producing insights and identifying key points worthy of focus groups and market tests? Sure, it's had a few million invested in it, but we have to cut it as more budget is shifted to "social", which is only effective due to the "ROI" being warped into bullshit while traditional methods still rely on ACTUAL REVENUE measures for ROI. I'm not saying social is worthless, it has some great benefits, but most companies are doing it completely wrong and at the same time destroying things that actually work. It's reached fad-levels and gone full retard.
Furthermore, the facebook stats are just plain fake, fake users or not, what they call "active" is a scam. Sure, when you cram invasive cookies and cram a universal login scheme into large sites... it's not hard to be "active", if anything it's hard to be "inactive". Example: you signed into facebook a month ago because reasons. Every time you visit a site that links to any facebook content, you are "active", everytime you comment on a page that has facebook, you are active. An ad from facebook? active. About the only way to kill it is to signout and nuke all the cookies. There, you are no longer active, but people are generally stupid. In the meantime, all that traffic data is being tracked and sold... or in the case of NSA, given away for free. Congrats idiots, you're spying on yourselves. Install that stupid thing on your phone? Hurrah, they now have access to all your calls, texts, and location. Upload a picture, they have access to all the metadata from it as well. It's a society of fucking idiots, that's what it is. When this bubble finally pops it's gonna get really ugly really fast. This ain't like the tech bubble back in 2001, the industry was still pretty small then, fairly isolated too. It's systemic now, and it's all built on a pile of bullshit... oddly enough, the same exact bullshit leftover from the last time, which everyone simply tries their best to ignore.
Best comment on this thread!
The reality is this just a different variation on the old pay by the click ad revenue generator except they use facebook likes and fake accounts as the pay by click instead. Same equivalent gaming of the system is also going on.
so facebook has adopted the google business model...which is the basis of the American economy actually.....swindelism
Love ZH, but there are so many spurious assertions in the video that you could write a book about it.
I liked your comment, but I didn't engage with it.
Sorry.
facebook is a scam... i would like to know how much% are fake likes...
dont blame poor chinafarmer, they just want to make a living. suckerberg is the scammer
I knew Facebook was a scam several years ago. A close friend died, and from the grave I was getting likes from her.
when we all have that feeling and is explained in simple. similar concept to pokerstars but with more human touch and nicer status messages
Monetize dem eyebalz bitchez!
3D Printers will print moar real users, you idiots!..............
Wouldn't it be far more efficient for Zero Hedge to post articles on the very few things in life that aren't scams?
You mean the $1.50 I spent to be "liked" was a scam???
You know in the old days when you paid a real human to be liked at least that $1.50 bought a better R.O.I. . There are no happy endings involved with facebook likes...