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Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

propublica.org

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Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#81

Post by dizzystar »

winternett wrote: post #30

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 of…

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.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#82

Post by TuringNYC »

_fat_santa wrote: post #6

> 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 wh…

>> 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.

I follow a popular trader on IG and she sells courses for ~1500 USD. A slew of look-alike IG accounts try to sell pirated videos of her course for 100 USD. The fake accounts follow followers of the real account and DM them.

It isn't about having a blue checkmark next to her name nor vanity. I think its literally about protecting her profession as an instructor who has sunk quite a bit of time and effort into a course.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#83

Post by TuringNYC »

indymike wrote: post #80
coastermug wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

See a Trademark lawyer. Do so now.

Does this really work? As various phone scams reveal, most scammers are overseas in jurisdictions outside where lawyers can do anything.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#84

Post by vonseel »

_fat_santa wrote: post #6

> 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 wh…

If it were a verification badge you’d think someone would develop a technology to sign tweets / posts the same way you can sign and push a git commit, i.e. , the authentication backend would incorporate some sort of signing which requires a special token.

All this would have to be hidden from the end-user, of course, so I’m not sure what it offers on top of just knowing the user credentials.

Maybe it would have to be implemented where when you login to an app, the app also looks in iCloud or Google storage for the keys associated with your verified identity (which you have to submit documents for, and when submitting documents, your phone creates the keys). Any additional devices the user wishes to use, he or she would have to share the keys from the initial device.

Not a crypto guy, is this the gist of what actual verification would look like and what additional benefits it serves over 2FA or knowing the users password?

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#85

Post by markdown »

TuringNYC wrote: post #83
indymike wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See a Trademark lawyer. Do so now.

Does this really work? As various phone scams reveal, most scammers are overseas in jurisdictions outside where lawyers can do anything.

A cease and desist letter from your lawyer to instagram's lawyers should do the trick.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#86

Post by hyperhopper »

withinboredom wrote: post #70
_fat_santa wrote: post #6

> 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 wh…

> 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...

Exactly. Which is why they should stop calling it "verification"

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#87

Post by charcircuit »

vonseel wrote: post #84
_fat_santa wrote: post #6

> 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 wh…

If it were a verification badge you’d think someone would develop a technology to sign tweets / posts the same way you can sign and push a git commit, i.e. , the authentication backend would incorporate some sort of signing which requires a special token. All this would have to be hidden from the end-user, of course, so I’m not sure what it offers on top of just knowing the user credentials. Maybe it would have to be…

It's called having an account. If you see a post from @asdf then the post came from @asdf. No one else can make posts as @asdf.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#88

Post by phantom_of_cato »

IMO, verification should be available to anyone willing to provide a solid ID, physically go to an office for that, and pay a small fee for the work required to check the validity of the ID. Validation for celebrity accounts should probably be harder, not easier, due to higher risk of identity fraud.

I find the current weird status-signalling thing that it currently is quite ridiculous.

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#89

Post by nonameking2026 »

phantom_of_cato wrote: post #88

IMO, verification should be available to anyone willing to provide a solid ID, physically go to an office for that, and pay a small fee for the work required to check the validity of the ID. Validation for celebrity accounts should probably be harder, not easier, due to higher risk of identity fraud. I find the current weird status-signalling thing that it currently is quite ridiculous.

"small fee" actually just fixes the problem (mostly)

Re: Fake musicians: a million-dollar Instagram verification scheme

#90

Post by brigandish »

TuringNYC wrote: post #83
indymike wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See a Trademark lawyer. Do so now.

Does this really work? As various phone scams reveal, most scammers are overseas in jurisdictions outside where lawyers can do anything.

Instagram are the party one needs to get the attention of in this instance as they control the platform.
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