[HN Gopher] Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verificat...
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Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme
Author : danso
Score : 168 points
Date : 2022-08-31 14:00 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.propublica.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org)
| jorpal wrote:
| I thought propublica was for hard hitting investigations on big
| issues of public importance? Who cares about fake badges on
| social media?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of sales are
| driven by the clout of badges on social media. That's where we
| are now. Small one off ethical problems become social problems
| when they aren't one-off and then become legal problems.
|
| 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.
| echelon wrote:
| > In response to information provided by ProPublica and the
| findings of its own investigation, Meta has so far removed
| fraudulently applied verification badges from more than 300
| Instagram profiles, and continues to review accounts. That
| includes the accounts of Mike Vazquez and Lexie Salameh, two
| stars of the MTV reality show "Siesta Key." Rather than get
| verified for their TV work, they were falsely branded online as
| musicians in order to receive verification. They lost their
| badges approximately two weeks ago and did not respond to
| requests for comment.
|
| 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.
| Unknoob wrote:
| They did participate in a fraudulent scheme to obtain the
| badges. If they had been verified for their real
| accomplishments they would still have it.
|
| 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?
| riffic wrote:
| these are basically arbitrary labels bestowed upon an account.
| let's not kid ourselves that "verification" goes anywhere beyond
| that.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| Same companies apply similar practices for fact checking. Just
| saying.
| smm11 wrote:
| Guy plays guitar outside my Trader Joe's, hat out for money, sad
| sign on carboard.
|
| I toss a water bottle his way, he catches, music still playing.
| Funny, that.
| dqpb wrote:
| > The coveted blue tick can be difficult to obtain and is
| supposed to assure that anyone who bears one is who they claim to
| be...hopefully paving the way to lucrative endorsements and a
| coveted social status.
|
| Gross
| coldtea wrote:
| This article reads like reporting on a bunch of pick-pockets
| stealing a few wallets with $20 in, as if it was the Great Train
| Robbery.
| Kaotique wrote:
| What I don't understand is why Meta/Facebook thinks you are only
| a real person if you are a musician. You cannot just upload a
| picture of your passport and a couple of bank statements. You
| know, the way any other company verifies the identity of a
| person?
| abbusfoflouotne wrote:
| Definitely not interested in giving ol Zuck my passport and
| bank statements
| winternett wrote:
| Thats exactly the biggest concern. Private companies are
| asking for government ID and most of the time they're not
| handling it securely, and it is also stored with other very
| personal information the application collects from you.
| Totally sketchy in nature.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| What could he do with your passport?
| jtbayly wrote:
| Yes. But even assuming a desire to limit verification to
| notable people, it seems very odd that minor musicians are
| allowed but not minor actors.
| danso wrote:
| I would have to guess the infrastructure/digital bureaucracy
| of Spotify provides a scalable verification method in a way
| that doesn't exist for minor actors. Having a Spotify artist
| account at least implies you have an identity with connected
| financial credentials (i.e. to receive streaming revenues).
| thewebcount wrote:
| Anyone with $19.99 can sign up for DistroKid and get their
| stuff distributed on all the major music apps and
| websites.[0]
|
| 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.
|
| [0] https://distrokid.com
| wongarsu wrote:
| Verification badges only makes sense for public figures. There
| are about 125 people in the US named Serena Williams, but
| giving anyone of those a verification badge for their account
| real_serena_williams would be counterproductive, since everyone
| would assume it's the account of the famous Tennis player.
| colpabar wrote:
| I struggle to understand why verification on social media
| platforms involves anything more than taking a picture of
| yourself touching your nose with your left hand or whatever. The
| point should be to prove that the account is actually you, right?
| How did it end up being some kind of badge of honor?
| reidjs wrote:
| Sort of like how there are only Wikipedia pages for "notable"
| people, only people with some amount of fame get a blue check
| mark on these platforms.
| riffic wrote:
| there are at least cut and dry criteria for what notability
| means on wp.
| danso wrote:
| It's in a social media company's best interest for its user
| base to easily find and distinguish between Matt Smith the
| famous actor and the thousands of other Matt Smiths, especially
| the ones who might try to fake being the famous Matt Smith for
| shits and giggles and/or profit. "Verification" is definitely
| the wrong term for it, but if companies could come up with a
| different verb that didn't make even more obvious the divide
| between "important" people and the rest, they would have by
| now.
| gilleain wrote:
| However, doesn't this "IsFamous" label break down when
| multiple famous people share a name. No obvious example
| spring to mind, but it surely must happen...
|
| 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.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The UK actor's union Equity effectively acts as a name
| registrar to avoid this:
| https://www.actorsequity.org/join/WhyJoin/name-protection/
|
| That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walliams
| spells his name with an A rather than the more normal I.
| cruano wrote:
| I mean, Michael B. Jordan is a good example of why you
| don't have a good example. Even if you share the name, you
| have to differentiate it somehow to be marketable.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| As a sibling of yours points out, it's not just for
| marketing: the US actors' union does not allow active (or
| potentially inactive) members to share a name.
|
| Michael B. Jordan has the B because Michael Jordan has a
| SAG card from his movie work.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I'm guessing some of these websites will favor content from
| "verified" users?
|
| 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.
| dncornholio wrote:
| The verified tag is just ridiculous. It should be for everyone or
| for nobody.
|
| 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
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| I find it useful on Telegram. There's a lot of
| scamming/phishing there too. It has helped a lot during
| pandemic peak to filter out misinformation.
|
| 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.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| > Meta has so far removed fraudulently applied verification
| badges from more than 300 Instagram profiles
|
| 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.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I don't know, I think it makes sense to have highly-visible
| verification UI on profiles that are using names, bios, and/or
| profile pictures that are clearly claiming to be a well-known
| public figure. Like, if you see a profile with the name "Jacob
| Smith" and an unrecognizable photo, what does it even mean to
| say that profile is verified? You don't have an existing human
| referent for that profile information anyway, so what is being
| verified? On the other hand, if you see a profile with the name
| "Tim Cook" and a picture of the Apple CEO, you _do_ have an
| existing referent, so it does make sense to be able to quickly
| spot the checkmark to see that the social network has verified
| that profile.
|
| 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.
| coastermug wrote:
| My partner runs a small brand, which attracted a copycat page
| clearly designed to scam users out of money for giveaways. She
| attempted to "get verified" and was denied because there was
| not enough news stories about the brand. We own the trademark
| to the brand name, and the verbatim copying of the copycat
| clearly infringes copyright. The only option we have is to file
| a trademark dispute through Instagram, but that involves
| handing over business information to the offending scammers,
| which seems like it could have unintended consequences. My
| whole strategy has been to tread lightly, as I've read so many
| horror stories of people losing their accounts, or the wrong
| account being banned. I genuinely don't understand why the
| Instagram platform is so permissive to clear scammers.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They have no incentives to care. You're no one to them, and
| they have no legal obligation to do anything about it.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Generate several cleverly designed scam accounts yourself
| using burner credentials which eventually redirect to the
| official entity. Out-scam yourself and the scammers by
| becoming the flood.
| indymike wrote:
| See a Trademark lawyer. Do so now.
| 14 wrote:
| Meta gives no fucks is why. I've reported many scammers and
| fake profiles on Facebook and always get replies back about
| that the profile does not violate community standards. That
| is because the only standard Meta has is if the fake profile
| keeps posting even if it is a scam even if it is fake news
| that is fine by them. I had a friends account taken over by
| some scammer and he changed the profile picture and location
| and everything so tried to report it, you only get limited
| options of what to report there is no "someone took over my
| friends account" option, but nothing was done. So now my
| friends fake account is out there doing whatever it wants.
| Just realize Meta gives no fucks about you or your wife and
| would rather a fake profile on their platform.
| soco wrote:
| "I genuinely don't understand why the Instagram platform is
| so permissive to clear scammers" - more traffic, apes
| together strong?
| nullc wrote:
| If they're actually infringing your copyright with the copied
| content then a DMCA takedown should be a more reasonable
| prospect. Most platforms have highly lubricated paths for
| that, and you won't need to provide the scammer with more
| than a contact information for your attorney.
|
| 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. :)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I've had my personal photos stolen by Instagram spammers,
| and using their DMCA takedown process, I was able to get
| them removed within 24 hours.
|
| 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.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| That is the common perception but it is not accurate.
|
| 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).
| lozenge wrote:
| One political party in the UK managed to change their username,
| banner and description on Twitter to "fact check UK" and keep
| their badge.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/19/tories-twee...
| withinboredom wrote:
| > But we all know that badge is just a "Famous" 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...
| jliptzin wrote:
| They should either change the verification badge to say
| "certified famous" or something, or just give out the
| verification badge to anyone who wants it, provided they
| successfully prove their identity. I don't see how verifying my
| identity negatively affects Justin Bieber's verified status,
| for example.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| Perhaps there is a second person on earth named Justin
| Bieber? Then they might try to trick people. The blue check
| says "this is the one you probably meant"
| iamcurious wrote:
| You still have the problem of two famous persons named the
| same. It would be better to have separate checks. Have a
| check that means "this person showed us their passport" and
| another that says "this account is owned by the famous
| person mentioned in this news article".
| dncornholio wrote:
| The definition of famous is just too relative. The tag should
| be considered harmful. Social media platforms should not
| dictate who is famous or not.
| [deleted]
| Justsignedup wrote:
| I assure you if I had a plan to monetize a social media
| account, and needed 1M followers to do so, I will happily pay
| 100k to make a few mil!
| gabereiser wrote:
| That's the real heart of the issue. It was never a verification
| badge. It was always a popularity badge. Social media is
| garbage. We need to find a better way. Obviously having that
| many eye-balls means business opportunities for the gig-worker
| economy but this kind of restriction/status symbol is ripe for
| corruption and fraud by design.
| winternett wrote:
| Posting anything authentically promotional on these platforms
| is mostly a total waste of time... They steer views to
| foreign countries where no one is likely to buy your music or
| follow you. Everyone is deceiving everyone on these large
| platforms now, that why music and many other scams dominate
| the entire Internet.
|
| 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.
| winternett wrote:
| The pipeline for musicians on social media is to pay an online
| source to publish disingenuous articles and Wikipedia entries
| about them as an artist, and then to use those (purchased)
| sources for verification. Any artist can get official looking
| press interviews done on them and then get verified if they are
| willing to pay for it. Many artists also buy accounts on social
| media that already come with thousands, and often millions of
| followers already on them, and then simply change the name on the
| account to their own artist name. You can also directly pay for
| verification with any corrupt side-dealing marketer that has
| access to Twitter, IG, or many other business platforms on those
| very same social apps.
|
| 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.
| dizzystar wrote:
| There is a sinister underpinning to the pay-for-stream stuff.
| The "influencer / musician" gets penalized hard for boosting
| Spotify streams (*), then they go on social media and complain
| that they only make $10 for 1M streams, and attempt to promote
| other "more ethical" platforms.
|
| 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.
| boredemployee wrote:
| That is so funny and in a nice timing: Tom Cormen just started to
| beg Twitter to have a verified account:
| https://twitter.com/thcormen/status/1564767028375945217
| riffic wrote:
| this happens so often and there's something about this (begging
| Twitter to notice you exist) that rubs me the wrong way. I
| previously said that Twitter verification is just an arbitrary
| label that Twitter, Inc, bestows upon someone.
| [deleted]
| Nition wrote:
| He says Twitter required five news articles mentioning him as a
| political candidate and he was only able to send them one.
| Seems pretty clear why he wasn't considered notable enough.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This looks like a bit similar to various 'vanity publishing'
| operations in the writing world. These varied quite a bit, there
| was an era (pre-Internet) when it wasn't uncommon for the up-and-
| coming corporate executive to hire a writer and publisher to
| write a glamorous biography and print a few thousand copies, to
| be handed out to whoever would take them. I suppose today that
| approach could plausibly provide a 'source reference' to base a
| Wikipedia page on (See! See! Someone wrote a Book about Me!). I
| suppose this is relatively harmless, if a bit ridiculous.
|
| 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."
| digitallyfree wrote:
| I think there have also been cases where celebrities or
| politicians have hired fake "fans" (basically actors) to show
| up to their appearances and make them appear more famous then
| they actually are.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Paparazzi are typically tipped off if not outright paid to
| show up at the right time.
| bombcar wrote:
| A similar thing exists in the music industry outside of
| Instagram, continually selling wannabe musicians "agent access"
| and "recording sessions" for $5-10k a pop and never actually
| doing anything.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >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.
|
| 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.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| A couple of thoughts
|
| 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
| tough wrote:
| A crypto bro scammer using a (from a friend) stolen verified
| account tried to buy mine for 700 via Discord
|
| Cringey stuff
| kuramitropolis wrote:
| Anyone seen using Instagram automatically becomes dead to me
| until proven otherwise.
| rewrewrewqf wrote:
| I see some people are having trouble working out what this badge
| means. It's pretty simple, really - they are for content-creators
| that make Meta lots of money.
| leonidasv wrote:
| This bears much similarity with this scam discussed on HN some
| days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32377063
|
| > 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.
| Matt_Cutts wrote:
| I came here to note the same connection. I forwarded both
| articles to a spam person at Google.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Yep -- in fact, this might be another facet of the same scam.
| From the ProPublica article:
|
| > 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.
| yashap wrote:
| Worth noting that "fake it till you make it" is a very old/well
| established strategy in the music world, it's just being
| applied to social media. For example, read about some of the
| things David Bowie's manager Tony DeFries did. Before Bowie was
| remotely famous, DeFries hired body guards for Bowie just to
| give him an aura of fame, had him drive around in stretch
| limos, hosted lavish after-parties after shows even when he was
| a nobody, leveraged curiosity about all of this into interviews
| with reporters at fancy hotels, etc.
|
| 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.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Wow, this article caused me to google myself and find that google
| has labeled me a music artist as well. I should start my own
| service since it seems maybe all you need to do is create a
| podcast, then google says you are a musician and presumably the
| verification process at Facebook follows google's lead.
| bombcar wrote:
| Is it you or a name-doppleganger?
|
| 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 ...
| InitialLastName wrote:
| A (mid-20s) friend shares a name with a (70-year-old) ex-IRA
| member, and has been pulled out of the line for extended
| interrogation every time he's flown since he was a child
| because his name triggers anti-terrorism flags.
|
| 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.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Buttle, I mean... Tuttle?
| Unknoob wrote:
| I wonder if airports would accept an Instagram verification
| badge as proof that he's not a terrorist.
|
| Hold on, no one dare steal my new business idea.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Ouch that hurts.
|
| No it's me, its just they must label all podcasters as
| musicians.
| llacb47 wrote:
| Your song LISP in space is a classic!
| Nition wrote:
| The fake articles are incredibly bad. I hope the future Internet
| isn't made up of wading through mostly bot-generated nonsense
| like this to find real content.
|
| 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.
| llacb47 wrote:
| It already is..
| Nition wrote:
| There's certainly a lot of it, but I can still find and
| identify the real content pretty easily for now. I'm thinking
| of a future where it's really everywhere, and harder to tell
| apart from the real thing.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Billionaires reading be like "at least they are not writing about
| us again"
|
| 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.
| pvillano wrote:
| The business strategy for social media moderation seems to
| universally be "offer the least support possible without breaking
| people's addictions or losing advertisers."
|
| 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.
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