.=A2AHIK=@AHI
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`Business Report
`
`Fake Persuaders
`
`Fake accounts can inflate follower counts, suppress political messages, and run
`
`stealthy social marketing.
`
`by Tom Simonite March 23, 2015
`
`dvertising revenue is soaring at Facebook and Twitter as
`
`A
`
`consensus grows that people can profitably be influenced
`
`by promotional messages woven in between updates from
`
`their friends.
`
`ç
`
`ó
`
`
`
`But not every commercial enterprise exploiting the persuasive power
`
`Ƨ
`
`of social media has set up a corporate account or pays for ads. Fake
`
`accounts operated by low-paid humans or automated software have
`
`become good business, too. They are used to inflate follower counts, to
`
`push spam or malware, and even to skew political discourse. The tactic
`
`appears to be pervasive and growing in sophistication.
`
`On Twitter as many as one in 20 active accounts are fakes. Facebook’s
`
`equivalent number is a little more than one in 100 active users. Software
`
`tools that help you make new accounts in bulk can easily be found or
`
`bought online, says Christo Wilson, an assistant professor at
`
`Northeastern University who has studied the problem of fake accounts.
`
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`Twilio v. TeleSign – IPR2016-01688 | TeleSign Ex.
`Page 1
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`2002
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`2=CA B$
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`Business Report
`
`Fake Persuaders
`
`Fake accounts can inflate follower counts, suppress political messages, and run
`
`stealthy social marketing.
`
`by Tom Simonite March 23, 2015
`
`dvertising revenue is soaring at Facebook and Twitter as
`
`A
`
`consensus grows that people can profitably be influenced
`
`by promotional messages woven in between updates from
`
`their friends.
`
`ç
`
`ó
`
`
`
`But not every commercial enterprise exploiting the persuasive power
`
`Ƨ
`
`of social media has set up a corporate account or pays for ads. Fake
`
`accounts operated by low-paid humans or automated software have
`
`become good business, too. They are used to inflate follower counts, to
`
`push spam or malware, and even to skew political discourse. The tactic
`
`appears to be pervasive and growing in sophistication.
`
`On Twitter as many as one in 20 active accounts are fakes. Facebook’s
`
`equivalent number is a little more than one in 100 active users. Software
`
`tools that help you make new accounts in bulk can easily be found or
`
`bought online, says Christo Wilson, an assistant professor at
`
`Northeastern University who has studied the problem of fake accounts.
`
`DJJFI MMMJA?DCOHALEAM?I#!#' B=AFAHIK=@AHI
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`Twilio v. TeleSign – IPR2016-01688 | TeleSign Ex.
`Page 1
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`This story is part of our May/June 2015 Issue
`
`See the rest of the issue
`
`Subscribe
`
`One of his students recently tested some of those tools and set up 40
`
`Twitter accounts and 12 Facebook accounts in a single day before the
`
`companies blocked new registrations from that Internet connection.
`
`Simple evasive measures would probably have allowed many more
`
`accounts to be made. Investors closely scrutinize active user counts to
`
`gauge the value and potential of social networks. That encourages sites
`
`to ensure that their security systems don’t block legitimate users, says
`
`Wilson, making it easier for fake accounts to flourish.
`
`Fake accounts are given a veneer of humanity by copying profile
`
`information and photos from elsewhere around the Web. They can gain
`
`fake friends by exploiting human nature and the fact that people on a
`
`social network are often looking for new connections and content.
`
`“Choose a picture of a beautiful woman, and all of a sudden people
`
`accept your friend request,” says Wilson. Celebrities often have large
`
`numbers of fake followers because aping what many real users do is an
`
`easy way to make a fake account look legitimate.
`
`Once a fake account is established, the simplest way to make money
`
`with it is by quickly inflating the numbers of things like followers or
`
`“likes.” It is easy to find sites offering 100,000 new Twitter followers for
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`as little as $70. Instagram and Facebook “likes” and Pinterest “pins” are
`
`also easily bought. Having more followers or likes helps people and
`
`businesses look good. It can also influence the algorithms used by social
`
`networks or other companies to recommend influential accounts.
`
`Fake accounts have been used in more sophisticated ways to fake social
`
`support for something, and to influence real users to join in. The
`
`accounts are controlled either by software or by paying Internet users in
`
`developing countries a few cents per action.
`
`In 2010, a conservative group in
`
`Iowa used automated accounts to
`
`send messages supporting
`
`Republican candidate Scott Brown’s
`
`attempt to win a Massachusetts seat
`
`in the U.S. Senate. Thanks to
`
`retweets by some real users, the
`
`messages reached an audience of
`
`As social networks
`become more tightly
`coupled to personal
`spending and economic
`activity, incentives grow.
`
`60,000. In Mexico’s 2012 general election, the Institutional
`
`Revolutionary Party used more than 10,000 automated accounts to
`
`swamp online discussion. Both parties won their races, although it’s not
`
`clear what impact these social-media manipulations had.
`
`Recently, automated accounts have been seen staging more commercial
`
`campaigns. A 2014 study of 12 million users of China’s influential Weibo
`
`social network, which is similar to Twitter, found 4.7 million accounts
`
`involved in campaigns that try to manufacture word-of-mouth support
`
`for particular products. Most were automated accounts that amplified
`
`certain messages, mentioning products or services, from people with
`
`large followings (messages likely paid for by the brand behind them).
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`Also last year, automated tweets were part of a scam that inflated the
`
`value of penny-stock tech company Cynk to $5 billion in just a few days.
`
`Filippo Menczer, a professor at Indiana University, says more
`
`sophisticated “social bots” that engage with other users are probably
`
`active on Twitter and other networks but escaping detection. Research
`
`experiments with such bots have shown that they can successfully gain
`
`social capital and even shape the social connections humans make with
`
`one another, says Menczer.
`
`As social networks become more tightly coupled to personal spending
`
`and wider economic activity, the incentives to use them grow stronger,
`
`Menczer says.
`
`In 2014, the security company Bit-defender picked up a social bot using
`
`names including “Aaliyah” that was stalking men on the casual-dating
`
`app Tinder. Aaliyah would start a simple, scripted conversation, then
`
`ask the victim to play a particular social game, offering her phone
`
`number in exchange. The scam didn’t have a clear business model, but
`
`Bogdan Botezatu, a senior threat analyst at Bitdefender, believes it was
`
`“a test run for something much bigger.”
`
`The Pentagon’s research agency DARPA, which has its own concerns
`
`about what it calls “deception or misinformation campaigns” in social
`
`media, sponsored a contest in which teams of researchers compete to
`
`detect social bots at work in a Twitter-style social feed. Menczer, who
`
`took part, hopes the contest will lead to tools that are better at policing
`
`real social networks. “It’s kind of scary that we don’t know how to detect
`
`these kind of bots and campaigns if they are out there,” he says.
`
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`Next in this Business Report
`Persuasive Technology
`
`Consumers encounter technology designed to influence their choices daily. This report describes how
`
`that technology is being created and used by marketers, politicians, lawyers, and others.
`
`01
`
`Technology and
`Persuasion
`
`Persuasive technologies surround us,
`and they’re growing smarter. How do
`these technologies work? And why?
`
`by Nanette Byrnes
`
`02
`
`Persuasive Texting in
`Mozambique
`
`Inspired by trials that used text
`messages to change behaviors, a U.K.
`charity tested whether it could
`persuade HIV-positive people to
`attend their appointments.
`
`by Kristin Majcher
`
`03
`
`New Technologies
`Persuade in Old Ways
`
`Robert Cialdini, an expert in the
`science of persuasion, talks about its
`most modern methods.
`
`by George Anders
`
`04
`
`Pretrial Technology
`
`Lawyers are testing arguments and
`evidence online.
`
`by Nanette Byrnes
`
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`Nir Eyal is showing software designers
`how to hook users in four easy steps.
`Welcome to the new era of habit-
`forming technology.
`
`by Ted Greenwald
`
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