The Rise of Spam Bots On Instagram
Are we still going to pay attention to — “I’ve GOT A HUGE BOOTY” scam?
Lately, Instagram comments have become nothing but a cringefest.
How Have Bots Invaded Instagram?
I am not a big fan of social media. However, being an avid fight fan doesn’t stop me from scrolling a few of my favorite fighter’s latest posts on these platforms, particularly on Instagram.
Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jonny Bones, Georges St-Pierre are a few of the most famous fighter celebrities who are relatively active on those platforms. Not to mention the NotoriousMMA, aka Conor McGregor, probably the biggest fighter celebrity at the moment. Their frequent updates on fight stats, upcoming fights, and workouts are what I enjoy viewing the most.
Over the past couple of weeks, however, some bizarre stuff has grabbed my attention to a great extent. While scrolling through the comment sections, what I usually notice is the ubiquitous spam comments flooded all over the place.
And you would have noticed this more often too, especially in top-level celebrity posts. Interestingly, these are racked up with hundreds of likes — the reason why they’re at the top of the comments section.
By this time, you might’ve probably guessed what kind of comments I was referring to here. Yes, you’re right. It’s the Fake Instagram Spam Bots.
Ever since its inception in 2010, Instagram has quite a lot to deal with the bots’ spam problems.
Cat and Mouse Game
While all those thumbnails speak a lot about themselves, giving a quick peep through their profile gives you enough assurance that they are fake and autonomously operated by bots.
You would notice plenty of women’s photos and highlight stories often pictured in lingerie, bikinis, and see-through clothes depicted clearly on their profile page.
It makes me wonder how this biggest photo-sharing platform could turn into a softcore porn site?
Now, let’s see how these autonomous bots have been playing games with us.
At first, the scam sites/profiles will lure you into following them by leaving comments in your followed celebrity posts. For example —
We gonna ignore the fact that I’ve GOT A HUGE BOOTY.
Or,
DON’T LOOK AT MY STORY if you don’t want to MASTURBATE!
As ludicrous as it may sound, the description of those profiles is somewhat like this:
- Just the babe next door!
- Prepare yourself to watch my masturbation videos and watch out not to get hooked after seeing it.
They are often followed by a Click Here button that points to a shortened Linktree URL.
Even the images and video teasers alone could give some audience a fierce desire to visit and sign up for the link.
When you sign up, with your personal information, you ultimately put your online safety at risk.
Then they flirt their ways into our credit card accounts and other personal details. You know what to expect next.
Even though there are plenty of ways to prevent you from spam, you have to accept the inevitable. It’s hard to get away with phishing links and spam emails — primarily at this age of internet community-driven platforms.
Just as Instagram influencers can earn cash every time someone clicks their affiliate link to their cosmetics product, porn accounts can make money from getting you onto porn sites — whether or not you spend any money.
So it’s better to stay away and delete those requests before they start to dig into you and your privacy.
Greater Appetite, Greater Risk
Furthermore, the problem is worsened by the fact that social media users actually seek out fake followers to increase their fan following, which leads them to accept random requests and direct messages.
According to the New York Times, which recently uncovered an industry of fake follower purchasers and companies, these accounts are becoming harder to spot because they “in an attempt to seem legitimate, use personal information from real people without their knowledge.”
Most fake accounts are easy to spot, considering relatively fewer followers over their huge following count. While other profiles might be filled with real information which makes it is harder for users to spot the fakes.
In either case, the bots will follow other accounts, like posts, and leave comments on targeted lists of Instagram accounts to increase reach, followers, and engagement on their page.
Although most bots are harmless, according to Pete Hunt, the CEO of Smyte, an online-fraud fighting company, some are not.
There are bad bots, however, that want to steal your password and infect you with a virus, which accounts for 28.9 percent of bots on Instagram — according to data security company Imperva.
Exploring More:
The problem doesn’t stop here. Let’s see other ways how bots lure people into their dirty world of engagement.
❎Cheating Influencers:
Some accounts offer people the sale of verification badges, which are typically limited to brands, news outlets, celebrities, and social media influencers.
Even more concerning fact is that they have the verified blue badge themselves, so people trust them easily.
They are tricking people and cashing in to build a business empire of their own.
You wouldn’t be surprised to see comments such as “DM me to buy verification badge, PAYPAL ONLY.”
There are estimates that there could be more than 150 million Fake Accounts on the Instagram Platform.
❎Bitcoin Twist:
Following the rise in fraudulent investments and pyramid schemes, many so-called social media influencers target their audience to fall into the trap of “get rich quick” schemes.
Comments like “I never believed Bitcoin and binary options was real until I was introduced to @some_random_channel” are very common.
There are even fake websites full of testimonies with dubious comments flooding all over the place.
❎Fake News:
In recent times, Facebook has an even more serious matter on his hands.
Facebook says it has taken down 7 million posts for spreading coronavirus misinformation — Washington Post
It just proves social media platforms have become nothing but a great platform to host fraudulent posts and hoaxes, and it will continue to soar in the future too.
The good news is that they are using algorithms to identify and track hashtags frequently used in posts containing false or misleading information.
As for the COVID-19 case, just recently, it also began redirecting anyone searching for information on Coronavirus to a special message providing links to verified and authoritative information sources.
Can The Fake Bots Be Stopped?
While automation bots are sometimes the best idea to increase your Instagram presence, it’s best to do it organically with enough time and proper strategies.
Automation can probably pick up some of the slack and trim down the tedious task.
However, Instagram isn’t a fan of automation “hacks” because nobody bothers for spam and that alone, the useless one.
Since Instagram has grown popularity tremendously over the recent periods, it needs to be careful now more than ever. It should not let any of those spams and troll accounts get out of control, hampering its user base.
As noted earlier, it ultimately comes to the hand of users to stop this from spreading rapidly. We can either ignore those accounts or flag them to let the algorithm get tuned and optimized.
To Instagram credit, there’s an Instagram account by the name of Bot Police, which has more than 467k followers(as of writing this article), created solely to help users remove spam from the platform.
Although Bot Police may have good intentions, it’s not their complete responsibility to keep Instagram safe. The primary responsibility comes from the users themselves to not fall into those baits.
More importantly, Instagram also needs to be more vigilant than it already claims to be.
Let’s hope that it will develop more effective strategies and technologies to cope with this problem.
