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How paying $18 can get you 1,000 fake Twitter friends

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:32PM EST
BGR

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Companies desperate to raise their social media profiles and lonely shut-ins looking to have more connections online can now pay just $18 to get 1,000 fake accounts to follow their musings on Twitter. Network World reports on a new study from Barracuda Labs showing that the average Twitter “dealer” has around 150,000 individual fake accounts at their disposal that they can use to quickly boost a person or company’s social media status. Obviously, Twitter doesn’t want to see its social network overrun with bots and is always vigilant about trying to take fake accounts down. But given that fake accounts are incredibly easy to set up and automate, Twitter may have a difficult time keeping bots off its platform for the foreseeable future.

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Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.