The Underground Economy of Social Networks

An anonymous reader writes "In a new study, Barracuda Labs analyzed a random sampling of more than 70,000 fake Twitter accounts that are being used to sell fake Twitter followers. They also analyzed some of the people that are using such fake followers including the recent example of U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Twitter account. Between Facebook's 10-Q filing stating that 83 million of its accounts are fake, to Mitt Romney's Twitter account recently falling under scrutiny for suspicious followings, fake social network profiles are a hot topic at the moment. And these fake profiles are at the center of a very vibrant and growing underground economy. This underground economy consists of dealers who create and sell the use of thousands of fake social accounts, and abusers who buy follows or likes from these fake accounts to boost their perceived popularity, sell advertising based on their now large social audience or conduct other malicious activity."

Comments

well that settles it

[Trepidity]

Whereas I previously liked all of Mitt Romney's policies and was going to vote for me, this shocking revelation that his Twitter follower count might be manipulated is just too much for me to swallow, so he loses my vote!

Re:well that settles it

[Trepidity]

Hah, I suppose I should preview better before posting. I was going to vote for him of course. But maybe I should indeed write-in "me" instead. My Twitter-follower count is genuine.

Re:well that settles it

[tompaulco]

Just the fact that he HAS a twitter account was enough to lose my vote.

Re:I wonder ..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Please, please, we prefer the term "heuristically assisted accountholders" and would like to assure all Facebook shareholders who aren't currently insider trading that they are based on the highest quality statistical inferences from our actual userbase for the greatest plausibility to the clickfraud bots that drive our advertising arm.