The Underground Economy of Social Networks 84
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."
I wonder .. (Score:3, Interesting)
How many fake accounts will it take to prop up Farcebook after they've forced Timelines on people and they begin the mass exodus to Google+
Re:I would have phrased it differently. (Score:5, Interesting)
That was supposed to be the whole point of Facebook. It's easy to "like" anything, but having a relationship graph gives you the context necessary to decide who the hell is "liking" something in the first place, and what that means. It all starts to break down when people friend anyone will-nilly, or sell their friendship to bots.
The problem is that friendship on Facebook (or Google Plus, for that matter) is an exhaustible resource. They'd probably kill fake accounts dead if they rationed the number of friends you're allowed to make, and only allowed people to create new accounts on the basis of several invitations and community rating -- essentially a proper web of trust.
Of course the whole business model for these sorts of sites is to bilk advertisers with clickfraud, and bots with phony accounts are a great way of doing that, so the goal isn't to eliminate phony accounts or friend relations, but to find the perfect balance of just enough humans to make the ads profitable, and advertisers feel like they're actually hitting an eyeball every now and then.
the argument on anonymity is approached wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
there is a perception that anonymous accounts must be stamped out by google, facebook, twitter, etc. wrong approach
in truth, let anonymous accounts blossom by the ten, hundred, or thousandfold
instead, the option should be provided for people to choose one of their accounts to be certified as real, whatever that process may be (the process must be thought out, you can hack anything, but the process must be as foolproof as possible)
people who want real metrics, real voting, real value, real financials, etc., can therefore choose to refrain certian transactions to only certified accounts. then let the bilgewater anonymous drek do as it wants, not affecting those things which the internet holds great promise to do, but is currently held back to due anonymous douchebaggery
ps: of course there are valid uses for anonymity. i don't need to the hear the arguments for anonymity, i understand them. you need to understand i am making a place for anonymity in this scheme of certification, and you also need to understand that there is plenty the internet promises to do (such as voting and certain financial transactions) that anonymity ruins
so the emphasis then becomes on not negative proof: stamping out every anonymous account, which is impossible and a ridiculously huge undertaking. the emphasis becomes one of positive proof: self-chosen inclusiveness and opt-in. for those who choose not to be anonymous, certain new abilities on the internet become possible. for everyone else who chooses to remain anonymous, carry on, status quo unaffected
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Political power (Score:4, Interesting)
If you aren't the one holding the gun, then you have no political power.
Pithy; but mostly false. In basically any polity as large/complex or larger than 'barbarian warband' actually holding the gun is a rather entry level task, typically handled by the actual leader's lackies. At the 'barbarian warband' level the strongman might occasionally have to do it himself; but even there it will be his charisma and burly friends and/or non-traitorous-family who keep somebody from just stabbing him in the eye while he sleeps...
If anything, "political" institutions are really an exercise in nothing so much as the mitigation of direct gun handling, through a combination of institutional compliance(ie. they don't say force of law for nothing; but the overwhelming majority of compliance requires zero cops to achieve) and relatively small(and, if one is both competent and lucky, tame) violence specialists to deal with any exceptions to the former.