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cimoreneHow Much of the Internet is Fake? Turns out, a Lot of It, Actually. by Max Read at NY Mag's Intelligencer, Dec 26.
(This article was full of links, including:)
The Follower Factory: Everyone wants to be popular online. Some even pay for it. Inside social media's black market. by Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel JX Dance, Richard Harris, Mark Hansen at the New York Times, Jan 2018. On the purchasing of fake followers, which are typically automated accounts enabled by identity theft.
The Flourishing Business of Fake YouTube Views by Michael H Keller, at the New York Times, August 2018. On the purchasing of fake YouTube views, which are created by so-called "click farms", or automated networks of devices such as cell phones.
The Humans Hiding Behind the Chatbots: Behind the artificial intelligence personal assistants and concierges are actual people, reading e-mails and ordering Chipotle. by Ellen Huet, at Bloomberg, April 2016. On the poorly-paid humans pretending to be AI assistants for paid apps/ services and even for Facebook.
Rising Instagram Stars Are Posting Fake Sponsored Content: "It's street cred--the more sponsors you have, the more credibility you have." by Taylor Lorenz, at the Atlantic, Dec 2018. On the "influencers" and would-be influencers who create fake ads in order to appear to have been hired by more brands.
The Strange Brands in Your Instagram Feed: A new breed of online retailer doesn't make or even touch products, but they've got a few other tricks for turning nothing into money. by Alexis C. Madrigal, at the Atlantic, Jan 2018. On the flourishing ecosystem of webstores that exist only as shopify-type storefronts selling a curated array of items from Alibaba, shipped directly from the manufacturers and depositing a cut in the creator's bank account.
A Business with No End by Jenny Odell of the Museum of Capitalism, Nov 2018. This is the one I posted the link to on Tumblr yesterday: a deep dive into an especially convoluted example of the previous type of stores, this time entangled with a number of lawsuits for fraud, a strange department store and chain of bookstores, an Evangelical university, and the zombie corpse of Newsweek.
(This article was full of links, including:)
The Follower Factory: Everyone wants to be popular online. Some even pay for it. Inside social media's black market. by Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel JX Dance, Richard Harris, Mark Hansen at the New York Times, Jan 2018. On the purchasing of fake followers, which are typically automated accounts enabled by identity theft.
The Flourishing Business of Fake YouTube Views by Michael H Keller, at the New York Times, August 2018. On the purchasing of fake YouTube views, which are created by so-called "click farms", or automated networks of devices such as cell phones.
The Humans Hiding Behind the Chatbots: Behind the artificial intelligence personal assistants and concierges are actual people, reading e-mails and ordering Chipotle. by Ellen Huet, at Bloomberg, April 2016. On the poorly-paid humans pretending to be AI assistants for paid apps/ services and even for Facebook.
Rising Instagram Stars Are Posting Fake Sponsored Content: "It's street cred--the more sponsors you have, the more credibility you have." by Taylor Lorenz, at the Atlantic, Dec 2018. On the "influencers" and would-be influencers who create fake ads in order to appear to have been hired by more brands.
The Strange Brands in Your Instagram Feed: A new breed of online retailer doesn't make or even touch products, but they've got a few other tricks for turning nothing into money. by Alexis C. Madrigal, at the Atlantic, Jan 2018. On the flourishing ecosystem of webstores that exist only as shopify-type storefronts selling a curated array of items from Alibaba, shipped directly from the manufacturers and depositing a cut in the creator's bank account.
A Business with No End by Jenny Odell of the Museum of Capitalism, Nov 2018. This is the one I posted the link to on Tumblr yesterday: a deep dive into an especially convoluted example of the previous type of stores, this time entangled with a number of lawsuits for fraud, a strange department store and chain of bookstores, an Evangelical university, and the zombie corpse of Newsweek.
