New York Attorney General to Investigate Firm That Sells Fake Followers

The Follower Factory

Everyone wants to be popular online.
Some even pay for it.
Inside social media’s black market.

Read: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/27/technology/social-media-bots.html


The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, on Saturday opened an investigation into a company that sold millions of fake followers on social media platforms, some of them copying real users’ personal information.
The company, Devumi, and its sale of automated followers to a swath of celebrities, sports stars, journalists and politicians, was detailed in a New York Times article published earlier on Saturday. While based in Florida, Devumi claims on its website to be based in New York City.

Read: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/technology/schneiderman-social-media-bots.html


https://www.forbes.com/sites/cheryl...h-on-social-medias-black-market/#4458fa3e2109
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/28/...estigation-fake-followers-social-media-devumi
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/54480...er-followers-james-cracknell-martha-lane-fox/
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/01/sh...brities-may-be-buying-social-media-followers/
https://www.mediaite.com/online/meet-the-media-people-desperate-enough-to-buy-twitter-followers/
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-did-paul-hollywood-get-his-twitter-followers
https://slate.com/technology/2018/0...s-the-mechanics-of-shame-on-social-media.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...-twitter-0130-chicago-inc-20180129-story.html
https://twitter.com/AGSchneiderman/status/957289783490957312




The guy is a member of BHW

https://devumi.com/
@Devumi
https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/devumi.912042/

I love how the media hypes it up as if no one knew this ever happened and that these celebs are all crooks... meanwhile all of the IMers are like, "Is this even news?"

Wow! He was in US and misleaded many people, may be that is why he got sue..

Hardly surprising for IMers!
Secondly, why is the government so pissed at people who are making a buck on virtual platforms which has negligible impact on real world. I mean, we all know those celebrities have a fake "real" life on instagram/facebook world as compared to their "real" life on earth!
So who really had a cardiac arrest if some celebrity profile or account turned out to be a fake one?
Instead of doing some real public service and solving actual real life day to day problems, the government is wasting time and resources on such petty issues. This goes to show the "Priority list" and the intent
Along with that, the media which is called as the 4th pillar of democracy is no less useful!
The 2 institutions humankind thrives on are so bloody useless in this era!

It's a consequence of Russians using bot networks to mess with online conversations and the elections. Once your fake followers are being used to play hardcore political games, you know someone's going to come after you. Only a matter of time, and the reason given is a fig leaf.

Devumi was last seen: Jun 28, 2017

Probably living in Fiji now.

EDIT: Just saw it was already posted on BHW, I did check but somehow missed it: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/n...any-that-sold-fake-twitter-followers.1005034/

What non-sense People are registering companies and selling followers/views etc OPENLY. I feel like this gave better exposure to this guy ' However, this does mean that people out there need to be really careful because it is ILLEGAL to do that but we need to learn to cover up our trails Good luck people...

@Asif WILSON Khan you are like my news source to be honest haha Thanks mate....

It's just a ploy for attention. We made "fake news" a thing in a bid to escape personal responsibility because, hey, we didn't know not everything online was true and now we move to do the same with the personas behind it. It won't actually change anything, but it's press and if we stretch it real good we can probably link it to the terrorists too. Next step mandatory social account registrations and fines for lying outside of political office?

Asif WILSON Khan said:

EDIT: Just saw it was already posted on BHW, I did check but somehow missed it: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/n...any-that-sold-fake-twitter-followers.1005034/

Click to expand...

I hadn't seen it and I bet many didn't.