
A black market where people pay for Instagram verification - gfredtech
http://mashable.com/2017/09/01/instagram-verification-paid-black-market-facebook/
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stayregular
>When Instagram decided to shutdown about 30 accounts related to cannabis last
year, a former employee tried charging people up to $7,500 to reactivate them
since he still had access to the feature. He was found out, and his access was
officially terminated, according to James.

I've had multiple accounts deactivated for cannabis, and seen hundreds of
other weedy IGs deleted -- while businesses like the official High Times sit
loftily at over 1 million followers AND verified. It doesn't surprise me that
there are shady backdoor deals going on.

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inuhj
I run a cannabis company in CA. After seeing my friend's account reactivated a
few months ago he told me he paid 3k for the service. When that IG employee
got fired there were 5 cannabusiness accounts I knew of that were deleted on
the same day. All people who paid the restoration fee.

~~~
inuhj
To the comments below who think IG isn't that important--I close upwards of
$40,000 of monthly recurring revenue from IG outreach every month. It's value
can't be understated.

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charlesdm
With what type of business? Selling goods?

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inuhj
I sell infused cannabis products to dispensaries. They resale them to the
consumer.

~~~
chr15
Do you have contact info? Would love to hear your story and how you got to
where you are.

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olivermarks
Presumably paying 15kUsD for a blue spot is worth it for some -fashion
industry etc - and the investment will pay for itself. I never heard of the
blue spot being particularly important though, my understanding was that
parading an effortlessly fashionable and beautiful life was what got the
attention.

Great piece on bloomberg from last year on how a journalist recreated himself
as an instagram influencer.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessio...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessions-
of-an-instagram-influencer)

~~~
Simon_says
After watching that video I find the whole Instagram phenomenon so bizarre.

~~~
659087
The whole idea of someone staging most of their life to impress people on the
internet, makes me physically uncomfortable to think about - even before
considering the fact that they have "fans", which makes the whole thing even
more awkward. It's like "reality" TV and celebrity worship taken to a whole
new level of depressing and shallow.

~~~
olivermarks
The rate card on the Bloomberg article says it all: get enough 'followers' and
you are into big money. Whether those followers are real, bots, or created by
insiders at Instagram is open to examination.

Gary Vaynerchuk and his company Vaynermedia have played a role in making the
big advertising holding companies see perceived value in 'influencer
relations'. Vaynerchuk's (2.2 million followers) instagram presence reminds me
of Chairman Mao's little red book, with endless exhortations to strive and
succeed.
[https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en)
Glassdoor suggests a different reality at his company
[https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-
Reviews-E48244...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-
Reviews-E482441.htm)

~~~
659087
> Vaynerchuk's (2.2 million followers) instagram presence reminds me of
> Chairman Mao's little red book, with endless exhortations to strive and
> succeed.
> [https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en)

I don't even have words for that one - but that profile definitely wouldn't
leave me thinking "I should do business with this person".

~~~
olivermarks
"We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the
sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an
entirely different view" Mao Zedong

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KenanSulayman
I don't see the point of having a "select" verification on social networks. It
should be for everyone, like a bank where you verify using ID and a webcam...
it could even be a paid service.

Making them exclusive and intransparent is shady. Just like username colors on
social platforms where people pay $15,000 to make them look special.

~~~
CM30
Agreed 100%. Why not do things like how Google Webmaster Tools does it, where
you fill in a form, get a file to post on your website and have it auto verify
based on that? Or for those who aren't website/service owners, a system where
you verify your name or address?

The current exclusive system on sites like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and
others is awkward and makes no real sense whatsoever. Same with the also
awkward trend of 'deverifying' people that say something 'offensive' or 'brek
the rules'. You don't stop being the same person when you upset someone.

Really, sites and social networks need to just treat verification like
anything else.

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colejohnson66
That’s because it’s not for verification; It’s a status symbol.

Also, this is just speculation, but if saying certain things could get you
unverified, and being unverified would lower your ranking some places and hurt
your value, a website could censor what they deem “hate” speech simply with
the threat of unverification. You can’t really cry censorship over a little
icon.

~~~
CM30
Yeah, it's definitely a status symbol as it is now.

But my question remains the same. Why treat it like a status symbol?

I don't see a reason why this should be something fancy that only an elite few
should have. Why not have a different system for marking elite users which is
based on some sort of merit (or actual real world worth) rather than just a
vague sense of name recognition?

Just seems like they're misusing the concept, and that a system which does
away with the 'prestige' aspect of verification would do equally well on a
user level.

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noobermin
If Instagram were, say a government space, this would be called corruption;
but, it is a private company operating a defacto public space, so it is seen
as...employees disobeying their employer? Or what?

This is precisely the issue with company operated spaces: when there is shady
crap going down, there's no accountability.

~~~
quuquuquu
Hmm, interesting. I think this one is more "buyer beware".

Government corruption is a when a missile manufacturer donates heavily to a
pro-war candidate, and then that candidate ends up in the cabinet. 6 months
later, bombing campaigns are in full force.

A private company, or a private employee, selling eyeballs, legitimacy, and
influence... it's extremely flawed, but I'm not sure it has a horrifically
large effect on the world.

~~~
noobermin
I concur the effect on the world is rather small here, the closest analogy I
can think of are non-competitive bidding for a local park's construction that
goes to the governor's friend. Another was Chris Christie lounging on a beach
that was closed to the public. The latter is politically distasteful, but
really didn't hurt anyone. It still was corruption of a sort.

~~~
quuquuquu
This all does sound like heft nepotism and corruption!

On a per transaction basis, damage existe but is tolerable. At scale, it is
nightmarish.

I'm not sure the same can be said about buying Verifications, but too much of
anything could be bad!!

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cm2187
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn one day that some facebook employees
would be running face recognitions for private detectives... Human nature is
what it is.

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robtaylor
Pretty sure this type of thing happens everywhere - years ago I paid for some
dofollow links to be placed on specific aged topic based BBC news articles.

£500 a link was paid... a few days later they appeared.

They lasted about three years if I recall right before disappearing for
whatever reason.

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rgbrenner
A website can sell links like you're describing.. that's not illegal. I've
seen ad networks that only sold those types of links.

What's being described in the article is commercial bribery:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery)

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the BBC doesn't actually sell those links, it was
probably a similar situation to the article.

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rdtsc
I think in light of the recent fight against hate speech and fake news, there
will soon be a "silencing as a service" (SaaS). Where you can pay large
amounts of money to Facebook and Google and they will go and disable accounts
and ban various segments of users. Maybe you are Pepsi and get tired of Coke
getting ahead selling more sugared drinks than you, and so you pay Facebook to
take down accounts of anyone mentioning Coke in a positive light. Then maybe
they'll sell a reactivation service, where you can pay even more money to have
your account reactivated and so on.

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ben_jones
Isn't it already possible to pay for fake reports which results in takedowns
of legitimate youtube videos and similar content? I'd put good money on these
services being offered today.

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ben_jones
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook often tote the protections they
have on user data, i.e. datasets are anonymized and access is tightly
controlled. But does this extend to all acquired companies? Do acquired
companies that may have lesser protections ever get access to the parent
company's data?

