
Russian Vending Machine Sells Fake Instagram Likes - walterbell
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/russian-vending-machine-fake-instagram-likes?utm_source=mbtwitter
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notadoc
Comical but also kind of depressing that fake likes/followers are desirable
enough to sell.

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jacquesm
It's simply business. If people use likes as a proxy to mean quality or
happiness about a product then fake likes can be used as a way to bypass those
hard to achieve items so that others will buy a product.

That they won't be happy afterwards is the depressing bit. It's like spam, as
long as the cost of the spam is substantially lower than the profits on even a
single sale it is worth it.

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achamayou
A perfect illustration of "what gets measured, gets done".

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CamperBob2
Or, "Once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

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llcoolv
well. the actual big mac also doesn't look like the one on the picture and the
people in commercials enjoying products are actually paid actors. also,
snowboarders, musicians, etc don't use specific brands due to personal
preference, but they get paid to. this is simply "the old ways of thinking"
becoming "adapted" to the internet age. quite comical to be honest.

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jquast
Feeding a machine for fake likes, just like the advertisers on facebook.

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patrickg_zill
Check fiverr.com also. Saves you the trip to Russia :-)

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pawadu
They got personal trainers for your social network account...

Thats just cute.

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deevolution
I wonder how they determined the price for one like. I'd like to get money
back everytime I liked a photo!

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anovikov
Why are you calling these 'fakes'? As if most of likes were real ones.

There are whole FACTORIES of likes in China.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXlunXn0Ws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXlunXn0Ws)

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al2o3cr

        Why are you calling these 'fakes'? 
    

Uh, because they are? Words mean things.

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jacquesm
Well, on a technicality a 'like' is a counter in a computer somewhere and the
bits to count the 'fake likes' are the same bits used to count the 'real
likes'. By the time the number of likes is displayed they are to all intents
and purposes indistinguishable and identical in every respect.

The failure is on Instagram in not being able to separate out the fake likes
from the real ones before they increment the counter.

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kakarot
I'm a little confused because you argue all likes are the same and then make
the distinction between fake and real likes.

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jacquesm
It's prior and post accumulation in some counter or for display purposes. So
at the moment the like is done it is possible to distinguish between fake and
real but after you collapse them into a single counter you no longer can
distinguish fake and real.

This is what gives the 'fake likes' their value, that they are then used by
Instagram in exactly the same way as real likes. Instagram clearly fails at
distinguishing the two, so you really can't fault the users for not being able
to do so either. The fact that this service is available and apparently works
is a pretty strong bit of evidence that _all_ likes should be distrusted but
that's not how it will play out.

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cuu508
But is this just a dumb counter though? Instagram shows the list of people who
liked a photo.

Say, if one of my friends has a picture with 5 likes from people I recognize,
and another friend has a photo with 100 likes from weirdly-named accounts, I
can tell which ones are fake.

