Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme
propublica.org
propublica.org
It's not a "Verification Badge", it's a "Famous Person" badge. If you verify someone's identity, John Doe indeed controls the instagram account with his face and name, then I don't see how there could be anything fraudulent about it if it's just a "verification badge".
The verification badge is supposed to show whether the person that operates an IG account is really that person, so why does a persons public image have any bearing on that? The DMV isn't going to issue you an License, then call you a month later saying "hey we suspended your license, no one's heard of you".
But we all know that badge is just a "Famous" badge. If we think of it that way then yeah, Meta was in the right because those accounts were fraudulent, because the person did not actually famous.
I realize these badges can lead to potentially lucrative brand deals. But how sad does your life have to be if you're dumping all this money and time to having a blue checkmark next to your name.
Most likely they won't respond and will just be taken down. They might file a false counternotice but if so you'll get their contact information and shouldn't be worse off than if you'd done nothing.
If you're on the fence because you are concerned that the scammers might retaliate, keep in mind that if you knowingly allow scammers to defraud people under your name when you could do something to stop isn't the most moral choice-- even if its the easiest one.
Then again, I'm currently targeted by a multibillion dollar lawsuit because I called out a scammer in my former industry, so maybe don't take my moralizing at you too seriously. :)
A lot of these platforms will limit or ban accounts that accrue DMCA takedowns. Sumbit a new takedown for each instance of copyright infringement you find.
These platforms have millions of active accounts, but what they do is only let paid promoted posts trend, and randomly mix in memes from shadow accounts, while artificially capping visibility for everyone else (who doesn't pay for ads) at under 100-400 (low-value views).
Whenever the news gets onto reporting platforms, they switch their algorithm to make it look like things are operating fairly/normally, and then switch back to manipulation after the heat dies down. I'm pretty sure they have more psychologists and marketing specialists on staff than actual musicians and developers in management.
Suspending 300 accounts is like flicking a flea off an infested dog's back.
Worst case scenario. Best case scenario, your advertising reaches local folks and your business does well... Which makes your main source of revenue instagram, further entrenching you into the page-on-platform-as-a-business model, which makes the internet a slightly less accessible, anonymous, fun place.
See: forums/IRC replaced by discord servers, facebook businesses, record deals hinging on tiktok views, etc
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/19/tories-twee...
Of course, the social network could just attempt to verify every single profile, perhaps by requiring the submission of an approved government-issued photo ID and some human or automated comparison of the ID in the photo and the uploaded profile photo. But that has other obvious issues, namely around privacy and the ability to implement the process reliably.
Its a "have you been impersonated before and is likely to occur again" badge. This is merely correlated to fame, all while a famous bucket does exist.
The corollary of this is get impersonated to get a badge (while this article is about be a Fake musician to get a badge).
Literally one of the bullet points to get verified[1]:
> Your account must represent a well-known, highly searched-for person, brand or entity.
[1]: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/understanding...
I follow a popular trader on IG and she sells courses for ~1500 USD. A slew of look-alike IG accounts try to sell pirated videos of her course for 100 USD. The fake accounts follow followers of the real account and DM them.
It isn't about having a blue checkmark next to her name nor vanity. I think its literally about protecting her profession as an instructor who has sunk quite a bit of time and effort into a course.
All this would have to be hidden from the end-user, of course, so I’m not sure what it offers on top of just knowing the user credentials.
Maybe it would have to be implemented where when you login to an app, the app also looks in iCloud or Google storage for the keys associated with your verified identity (which you have to submit documents for, and when submitting documents, your phone creates the keys). Any additional devices the user wishes to use, he or she would have to share the keys from the initial device.
Not a crypto guy, is this the gist of what actual verification would look like and what additional benefits it serves over 2FA or knowing the users password?
Thousands of artists do this, they also leverage bots to drive their streaming numbers high to further boost their public impression. The platforms do very little to counter or authenticate this activity because people churning makes them money, and keeps their platforms looking alive, when in truth, it's all pretty much a pit of desperation for popularity with very little realness to it.
Citing all this, there is little value in spending all that money to fake success, most of the artists that engage in it lose money every year, and can rarely perform live as headliners because their audiences would be embarrassingly low (unless they perform at a big festival lined up with many other artists of course). Fakery is even less fulfilling for music artists when you look at the fact that most popular artists are losing a lot of money and time trying to look like they are successful... It also makes having any success as an authentic musician a total washout, as the industry is flooded with all the individuals that are impersonating success, which keeps authentic musicians almost totally out of view.
Until people wake up to how social media coddles the industry of fake credibility, things will get a lot worse. Just imagine fake credibility infiltrating the medical industry (for example), there would be a lot more botched surgeries and diagnoses. Private companies shouldn't serve as the grantor of credibility, they always do it from the perspective of what generates profit, not what generates authenticity.
In my own accounts, my Spotify streams pay just as much as any other platform. The tricks used for standard influencer accounts don't work for musicians, probably because you can't trick people into believing you make good music when it is clearly garbage.
(*) I should be more clear on what I mean. A stream in the US would pay about 1/2c for each stream, while a stream from Eastern Europe would pay far less. Of course, these streaming farms are located in these areas.
However, another side of the vanity publishing world is pretty scammy, basically promising writers and musicians and artists (generally ones with little commercial promise) 'a chance at success' by taking their money and doing things like this.
https://selfpublishingadvice.org/what-is-vanity-publishing/
> "A reputable company empowers clients with the information they need to choose the right service for their needs. That's in stark contrast to the deceitful and manipulative tactics used by vanity presses, where the goal is to sell the authors as many services as possible."
My wife’s mother is a lovely lady whose hobby is writing. I won’t say she’s particularly good at it, but hey, let a 60 year old lady do whatever makes her happy, right? Then one day she announced that she won a “contest” with one of her novels, and it’s going to be printed by a publisher! She was super pumped about the whole thing, but gradually it came to our knowledge that she’s gonna pay a substantial sum for this from her pension, because the “prize” was actually just a 50% “discount” on getting her book printed with this publisher…
Clearly, there was no real contest at all. This was just a vanity publisher preying on less sophisticated aspiring writers to part them from their money. It’s a complicated situation, because on one hand we didn’t want to ruin her happiness; on the other hand, she was clearly getting scammed badly… In the end we managed to convince her to go with the smallest possible quantity, which was of course then distributed mostly among family and friends.
Very disgusting and sad practice.
> go to some platform with public credibility that allows you to insert unverified but credible data (Spotify, IMDb, etc.)
> create entries for yourself
> pay PR sites with some good SEO to publish about it
> use this data to persuade bigger companies staff/algorithms to think you deserve that badge/star/custom box on their products
Guess we'll see a lot of those scams being uncovered as the time goes, a lot of people still think that Spotify/IMDb/etc. has some strong background-check policy for user-submitted content.
> The source said they also worked to ensure a client’s Google search results would present them as a musician. Google itself proved helpful in this regard. Once articles and music profiles were indexed by Google’s search engine, the site generated a “knowledge panel” in search results for the person’s name.
The strategy was to make him appear to be famous until he actually became famous, and it worked. Exactly what people confide to do today on social.
1. We have seen a major period (past decade) of "wild west" online where platforms could reap but not regulate.
From AirBNB renting out homes not legally entitled to, uber validating people who assaulted passengers, to whatever this verification thing is, this period is well and truly over.
2. The problem is we don't actually know what regulation we actually want. More and more we seem to find that regulation in modern world is ... less than we expect. The SEC mostly regulated by retroactive "no", professions similarly.
The problem is that's fine on a case by case basis, it's not how you can code up something to discover at the scale we see.
Facebook could not cope with nursing mothers groups at their beginnings and most professions are at the same level.
It's not bad but it certainly seems all the regulation we have is retroactive and not codified.
Or is it just we had cosy situations between regulators and regulated. And new entrants, sneaky or otherwise broke that
Plus, it's not like DJ Dr6ix wasn't actually the doctor in question. He just wasn't a musician. He wasn't pretending to be someone else, just something else.
DJ Dr. 6ix:
> “Umbrella,” DJ Dr. 6ix’s most recent single, has taken his listeners’ breath away. It’s only been a few months since the song was released. The song, on the other hand, has developed a large fan base in such a little time. Every day, the number of individuals who follow you increases by a little proportion.
> 6ix was born and raised in the metropolis of Los Angeles. He understands what the people of Los Angeles want from house music. They’re looking for something thrilling to start the celebration and lift their spirits. People are looking for a song to liven up the celebration. And 6ix, who is fully informed of the situation, is capable of doing so.
> Thanks to Rumor Records, 6ix has been able to share music with the world that he is proud of. He has been quite vocal during the development process. Rumor Records was kind enough to listen to his worries and requests. We are speechless when we hear the ultimate decision.
No Limit Boss:
> “Despair,” a new single by No Limit Boss, has been released. The song became highly popular within a few days of its release. It is currently quite popular on the internet, with thousands of streams available. This song was created with a lot of effort by No Limit Boss.
> No Limit Boss’s knowledge of house music allows him to create tracks that are tailored to the tastes of house music fans. As a result, it has become plainly clear that he is the artist to watch.
> “Despair,” No Limit Boss’s opus, is simply beautiful. It has made it quite clear that he is not just another artist to be compared to. No Limit Boss’s record label, Whiteout Promotions, has outdone themselves with the song’s impeccable production and mastering.
Of course it is up to consumer, investor, vendors to be more discerning. Of course, they aren't. So it's not a legal problem, right now, it is a social problem and that is being addressed by reporters and the platforms. That's where we are. It is completely congruent for ProPublica to be involved at this stage.
ProPublica "journalists" Craig Silverman and Bianca Fortis are total douchebags for doing this and bragging about it.
For all intents and purposes, the MTV stars are public figures and have visibility. This is such a lame move by ProPublica to attack the brand of these folks, which is what they derive their income from.
I feel like so much of this industry has turned to attention and drama seeking. This isn't journalism. This is throwing stones and complaining and trying to get clicks for it.
Shame on Craig, Bianca, and ProPublica.
Consider the following lame analogy:
A man who has been working as a programmer for 30 years has no diploma because he is self taught. He is having trouble finding a new position because for some reason companies are asking for a degree in a related field. He decides to buy one from a sketchy random university. People find out about the scheme and the diploma is invalidated. Should he be able to keep it because he probably knows everything he would be taught at university?
Too bad these fake musician pages are taken down. I am curious as to what fake music sounds like.
Also, this is not about verifying identity but verifying fame or being 'approved'. I have another idea: if meta requests account verification for anti-spam purposes, does this mean they will verify me too?
ProPublica only revealed how stupid or pointless account verification is overall. Either let anyone verify or what is the point of it.
As said I never tried, but the reality is there are plenty of offerings for this on the open market.
Not to mention you can buy verified accounts sometimes for less than $1000 as well.
The best is when you share a name with a famous criminal, and they don't have a picture of the criminal but do find your linked-in photo ...
No it's me, its just they must label all podcasters as musicians.
Last I heard he even had to get a special insert for his passport where the US State department affirms that he is not, in fact, an elderly Irish paramilitant.
Hold on, no one dare steal my new business idea.
Seems like it would be more useful to have some kind of more general labelling system, where you could be 'verified' as (say) a famous actor, and/or musician, or whatever. Then people could distinguish not only the famous Matt Smith from the unfamous, but also the painter Matt Smith, and so on.
That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walliams spells his name with an A rather than the more normal I.
Michael B. Jordan has the B because Michael Jordan has a SAG card from his movie work.
I mean, people will jump through flaming hoops for some stupid clout / prestige, but I would think there's some financial motive to all this. Could be that once you're verified on various platforms, companies will start to call you down with ad placement offers.
Man I was sigh-ing throughout this whole article..
They created a huge grave by adding the verified tag. People will and should exploit this. Blame the social media platform for this lousy, discriminating verified tag
But if it's for everyone, it won't make much sense. You can legally change your name to match anyone's, get that tag and scam others.
Gross
In no particular order: misinformation, foreign influence on elections, low quality content, unfair bans, report abuse, content theft, scams, unresponsive support, cyber bullying, harassment, spam, addiction, monetization instability, mental health effects, impersonation, radicalization, grooming, etc. aren't addressed because they usually don't affect ad sales enough to motivate action.
When the perception of a site becomes too negative, the absolute minimum is done as a response.
Porn and copyright infringement do affect ad sales, which is why they are resolved instantly, even at the cost of these other problems e.g. unfair bans.
I toss a water bottle his way, he catches, music still playing. Funny, that.
Cringey stuff
I find the current weird status-signalling thing that it currently is quite ridiculous.