The Economy of Spam (2022)
Social media platforms promote benefits for small businesses but harbor a hidden spam economy. Fraudulent activities thrive through sophisticated methods, exploiting platforms and users. Researchers infiltrate and expose this underground world.
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Social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube boast about their positive impact on small businesses, but there is a hidden economy of spam thriving on these platforms. Spam goes beyond annoying posts and ads; it's a sophisticated underground market with goods and services, standardized methods, and its own economy. This shadow economy operates openly on social media platforms, attracting fraudsters and scammers. To delve into this world, an Integrity Institute fellow infiltrated a South Asian spam community on Facebook. The process involves buying aged accounts, navigating identity verification, and monetizing through selling products or showing ads. Strategies include using recycled memes, clickbait, and leveraging current events to drive traffic to e-commerce sites or activate monetization for ad revenue. The shadow economy adapts to platform changes in real-time, offering services like fake documents to bypass restrictions. Understanding this spam ecosystem sheds light on how platforms can protect their communities from exploitation.
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