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Commercial services provide the ability to buy
Instagram followers, most of which are ghosts. These individuals are paid to follow accounts but are not required to engage with them. This allows those seeking
86:'s Twitter followers from 48,000 followers to 122,000 in only four days. This faux-popularity may still attract "volunteer" users. However, this technique may backfire if its use becomes known. According to
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in 2014 featured an interview with an anonymous provider of ghost followers, who claimed that he had sold fake followers to celebrities and politicians. Another article in the
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reported in 2014 that Rantic was selling fake, bot generated followers and likes, in a manner violating
Instagram's terms of service.
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At the time, the practice of selling ghost followers was a multimillion-dollar online business.
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platforms who remain inactive or do not engage in activity. They register on platforms such as
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has been identified as a provider of ghost followers, generating
Instagram accounts via
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Social Media ROI: Managing and
Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization
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210:"Hoaxsters Bought Us 75,000 Fake Followers in a New Kind of Twitter Attack."
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to quickly increase their number of followers and appear to be popular, or "
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Many ghost followers are accounts created by scammers who create fictional
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Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and
Branding in the Social Media Age
82:(formerly "SocialVEVO" and "Swenzy") was able to increase the number of
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359:"Fake Twitter Followers Become Multimillion-Dollar Business"
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International
Business Times Web. 11 December 2014.
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Users on social media platforms who remain inactive
347:"Instagram could delete up to 10 million accounts"
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212:The Daily Dot. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 June 2014.
335:"Friends, and Influence, for Sale Online"
292:"Friends, and Influence, for Sale Online"
222:Blanchard, Olivier (February 22, 2011).
66:and use them to target and scam others.
261:Marwick, Alice E. (November 28, 2014).
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337:The New York Times Web. 20 April 2014.
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382:Internet manipulation and propaganda
361:New York Times Web. 05 April 2013.
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290:Bilton, Nick (April 20, 2014).
193:N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2014.
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316:Confessore, Nicholas (2018).
118:International Business Times
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269:. Yale University Press.
191:"Social Networking Scams"
108:The social media company
318:"The Follower Factory"
197:April 2, 2014, at the
22:, also referred to as
387:Social media accounts
158:Rental family service
105:and other platforms.
58:Ghost follower scams
173:Sock puppet account
148:Ghosting (behavior)
322:The New York Times
153:Influence-for-hire
93:An article in the
377:Confidence tricks
276:978-0-300-20938-9
239:978-0-13-267802-5
230:Pearson Education
133:Asymmetric follow
88:Olivier Blanchard
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168:Social spam
52:social bots
371:Categories
179:References
163:Social bot
143:Egosurfing
301:April 19,
296:Bits Blog
248:740435584
84:Daily Dot
72:publicity
44:Instagram
195:Archived
127:See also
76:trending
64:profiles
103:Twitter
40:Twitter
32:lurkers
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116:. The
110:Rantic
80:Rantic
48:liking
24:ghosts
303:2023
271:ISBN
244:OCLC
234:ISBN
114:bots
42:and
26:and
263:"4"
99:NYT
30:or
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