New York state to investigate firm that sold fake followers to social media users
30 Jan 2018
New York's chief prosecutor said the state will investigate a firm that allegedly sold millions of fake followers to users of social media.
"Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law," said Eric Schneiderman, The New York Times reported.
The company, Devumi, has been accused of stealing real people's identities, which it denies, according to The New York Times.
The paper linked the "follower factory" to accounts of many celebrity accounts.
The newspaper published an in-depth report on Devumi on Saturday, which included interviews with people who alleged that their account details and profile pictures had been copied to create realistic "bots".
People who wished to boost the number of their followers, including actors, entrepreneurs and political commentators, could then allegedly pay to be followed by the bots.
High follower accounts on social media help to boost influence, impact public opinion, and can also offer advantages, such as job offers or sponsorship deals, to account holders.
According to Schneiderman such "opaque" operations were undermining democracy.
According to commentators, the internet should be one of the greatest tools for democracy, but it is increasingly being turned into an opaque, pay-to-play playground.
Meanwhile, Cheryl Conner, contributor writes in Forbes, that around 2012, the number 10,000 followers was the bar social media savvy executives aspired to.
A well-known Utah CEO also cracked jokes about the phenomenon in a speech. He said in his brief engagement with public media, with his highly-publicised exit, he noticed his contemporaries had 10,000 followers apiece, as against his own 5,000.
''Then I realized they'd bought them,'' he said. So he purchased 5,000 more of his own, to stay even. But he found that when he posted about issues that mattered to him in tweets such as ''Read this article--insightful'' within 30 minutes or so, at least 500 people had read. Considering the fact that 50 per cent of his followers were fake, he had managed to move 10 per cent of his 5,000 legitimate followers to action in less than an hour.
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