Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Photographer steps inside Vietnam’s shadowy ‘click farms’
Do you trust likes and dislikes on social media or customer reviews on online
shopping sites? Unfortunately, some or many of those responses are created
artificially for business. A click farm is a fraudulent operation that
generates fake clicks and online activity. Click farms set up a large number of
phones and PCs in places where cheap electricity and labor are available, such
as China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. They advertise their
services online for less than one cent per click, view, or interaction to boost
online traffic, visibility, and social media engagement artificially for their
clients. They also click paid ads of clients’ business rivals many times to
impair their effectiveness and use up their budget. Such service has been used
during elections to boost political messages or spread disinformation as well. Despite
the efforts by social media platforms like Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram,
to eliminate such frauds, click farms seem to have found ways to avoid being caught
by their detecting algorithms. Are there any ways for viewers to judge if online
reviews are genuine or fraudulent?
Read the article and learn about what click farm operations are like.
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