Dark Comedy
Junior Member
- Dec 16, 2016
- 173
- 34
Say I were to give someone 1000 followers, 1000 likes, and 1000 shares using bots, and I didn't tell them I did it, would it be considered wrong?
Is it considered "wrong" to bot-up someone's social media profile without telling them?
- Thread starter Dark Comedy
- Start date
Yernotserious
Newbie
- Aug 7, 2017
- 26
- 11
I think that'd fall under "Negative SEO" and is sometimes done to damage competition.
Ofc, it's not exactly ethical - but I don't think Blackhat SEO is really expected to be.
Ofc, it's not exactly ethical - but I don't think Blackhat SEO is really expected to be.
randybishop
Elite Member
- Aug 23, 2013
- 2,391
- 1,218
Is this a prank on a friend?
Could be funny.
Could be funny.
HoNeYBiRD
Elite Member
- May 1, 2009
- 10,187
- 12,580
I did this once on Twitter when i was bored, i gave random people (with low amount of followers) a few hundred followers.
Their reactions were priceless. lol
It can have a funny side and an evil side, where you want to do harm to someone.
Which one is it?
Their reactions were priceless. lol
It can have a funny side and an evil side, where you want to do harm to someone.
Which one is it?
55trillion
Power Member
- Sep 27, 2015
- 704
- 185
Ethically its wrong (actually ethically using bot itself is wrong), if your friend have no plans to make money from the page then he will be very happy
Dark Comedy
Junior Member
- Dec 16, 2016
- 173
- 34
I don't think I had intentions to do this... more that I was pondering how social media sites would ban an account.... I was thinking that a social media site cannot ban someone's account that has tons of botted followers and likes, because someone else can be the cause of it. It seems like competition would be targeting with bot followers.
I was also thinking on the altruistic side too... would people be happy if they randomly got tons of followers and had no idea what happened?
And lastly, I was thinking does it actually harm an account? I could see how it would harm a facebook page.... but would it actually harm a twitter or instagram account in any way? or a youtube account?
All just ponderings. I'm not about to bot up other people's accounts in my spare time for no reason.
I was also thinking on the altruistic side too... would people be happy if they randomly got tons of followers and had no idea what happened?
And lastly, I was thinking does it actually harm an account? I could see how it would harm a facebook page.... but would it actually harm a twitter or instagram account in any way? or a youtube account?
All just ponderings. I'm not about to bot up other people's accounts in my spare time for no reason.
HoNeYBiRD
Elite Member
- May 1, 2009
- 10,187
- 12,580
Well, after my little social experiment i came to the conclusion, that people weren't really happy. They were surprised at first, but when they checked the profiles, they found out that the followers are fake, so they weren't happy. Maybe i was unlucky with the random people i chose, and if i were choosing attention whores who measure their e-penises by the amount of followers they have on social media, those could have been happy i guess. So it depends on the people, but in general your everyday social media user won't be happy, when he/she finds out what exactly happened.
What makes a site ban an account? Honestly i don't think that a normal account which belongs to real users would get banned after receiving fake followers, likes etc. But i guess it also depends on the scale, 1k won't get you in trouble, but a million can.
I have a personal Twitter account, years ago i added tens of thousands of fake followers multiple times and nothing has ever happened to the account because of that. Oddly once it was suspended, but it was for another reason, because i had it authenticated with a followtrain site, which is against the Twitter TOS.
Nowadays fake/low quality social signals can harm an account, the account more than likely won't get banned on sight, instead it gets ghosted or the reach gets limited. This is true for Twitter, Instagram and i guess Youtube too, but i'm not really into that, so i wouldn't know.
On Twitter ghosting is a big issue since last year, they aren't only ghosting your tweets, but they're ghosting the notifications, which are sent out, when you follow someone.
SuperSonicProxy
Power Member
- Sep 3, 2017
- 792
- 91
I think that also depends on the person receiving the likes, shares, etc. If you would do that to my profile, I'd thank you 
. Of course, for people who just regularly use their social media accounts, they'd definitely brand it as an anomaly, and they'd maybe report it as well, in which that report could be linked back to your accounts, and that wouldn't be too good. Good feedback above! ^
. Of course, for people who just regularly use their social media accounts, they'd definitely brand it as an anomaly, and they'd maybe report it as well, in which that report could be linked back to your accounts, and that wouldn't be too good. Good feedback above! ^
winston_wolf
Newbie
- Sep 10, 2017
- 7
- 1
I used to add 1000+ likes to small businesses facebook pages for $$. At first i didn't mention they were fake, until few started to complain. I explained that it doesn't matter and that this makes them stand out from the crowd and they bought it. no one got penalized, i made a bunch of money, the end.