[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)
 
web link (www.propublica.org)
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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