33 ms·

A black market where people pay for Instagram verification

190 points by gfredtech 9y ago

KenanSulayman 9y ago
I don't see the point of having a "select" verification on social networks. It should be for everyone, like a bank where you verify using ID and a webcam... it could even be a paid service. Making them exclusive and intransparent is shady. Just like username colors on social platforms where people pay $15,000 to make them look special.
- Edmond 9y ago
  There is an even better approach to internet information verification at scale: https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/ https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/
  - TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
    Interesting link. I hadn't seen that before. Do you know if anyone is actually using this? From glancing over the docs, my big complaint is that it's not a federated system. Why is trust anchor management centralized?
    - Edmond 9y ago
      It could be federated, basically the same API could be implemented or a common implementation can be used by a number of service providers...still not sure though what federation by itself adds to the core solution. I am the developer and have tried so far in vain to get the IRS to integrate. The IRS is the single largest data source for basic identity attributes in the US so integrating that would essentially allow almost every adult in the US to be able to leverage it. I have developed a Chrome extension to allow the use of IRS tax transcript information but obviously it is a very high bar considering the sensitivity of that information. ....still work in progress
- CM30 9y ago
  Agreed 100%. Why not do things like how Google Webmaster Tools does it, where you fill in a form, get a file to post on your website and have it auto verify based on that? Or for those who aren't website/service owners, a system where you verify your name or address? The current exclusive system on sites like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and others is awkward and makes no real sense whatsoever. Same with the also awkward trend of 'deverifying' people that say something 'offensive' or 'brek the rules'. You don't stop being the same person when you upset someone. Really, sites and social networks need to just treat verification like anything else.
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    That’s because it’s not for verification; It’s a status symbol. Also, this is just speculation, but if saying certain things could get you unverified, and being unverified would lower your ranking some places and hurt your value, a website could censor what they deem “hate” speech simply with the threat of unverification. You can’t really cry censorship over a little icon.
    - CM30 9y ago
      Yeah, it's definitely a status symbol as it is now. But my question remains the same. Why treat it like a status symbol? I don't see a reason why this should be something fancy that only an elite few should have. Why not have a different system for marking elite users which is based on some sort of merit (or actual real world worth) rather than just a vague sense of name recognition? Just seems like they're misusing the concept, and that a system which does away with the 'prestige' aspect of verification would do equally well on a user level.
- romanovcode 9y ago
  > people pay $15,000 In 90% of the cases it's not the people who are paying. The companies that people are advertising are paying for the most part.
- criddell 9y ago
  I don't get it either. There's clearly value in the verification. Why don't they try to capture that?
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    The firm attempts to use that value to make the platform itself more valuable. The employee captures it more directly, because fuck the platform. Many problems in business are principal-agent problems.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Twitter opened theirs up but it's really just a queue for a denial email. You can meet all of their requirements and still be denied.
- dilemma 9y ago
  It wouldn't be valuable if everyone had it.
- vbezhenar 9y ago
  One interesting way for secure identification is using local government-issued certificates. In Kazakhstan every citizen can request a digital certificate which is signed by a central authority. Many other countries use similar technologies. Those certificates could be used for identification. But I believe that there are laws about storing people's information, so you might have to comply with that.
  - hatsunearu 9y ago
    Korea has something like this too. Any citizen can pay a small fee to get a digital verification cert, which contains a private-public key pair and a digital authentication signature from a trusted authority, who has been vetted by a nationwide system. Alternatively, one can sign up for a bank account and get a cert for free. This is used to login to online banking stuff, government business (taxes etc) and online activity. Fun thing is that the trust tree terminates at the government or via a trust web made by the banks. The reason for this is that when they were making the system, the academics and government officials had a bit of a disagreement and made two systems. Korean crypto is pretty crazy. Read about XEED and the decade long battle with MS ActiveX.
    - hatsunearu 9y ago
      Few mistakes, its actually called SEED and the crypto committee were all academics and the split happened among them.
olivermarks 9y ago
Presumably paying 15kUsD for a blue spot is worth it for some -fashion industry etc - and the investment will pay for itself. I never heard of the blue spot being particularly important though, my understanding was that parading an effortlessly fashionable and beautiful life was what got the attention. Great piece on bloomberg from last year on how a journalist recreated himself as an instagram influencer. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessions-of-an-instagram-influencer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessio...
- Simon_says 9y ago
  After watching that video I find the whole Instagram phenomenon so bizarre.
  - 659087 9y ago
    The whole idea of someone staging most of their life to impress people on the internet, makes me physically uncomfortable to think about - even before considering the fact that they have "fans", which makes the whole thing even more awkward. It's like "reality" TV and celebrity worship taken to a whole new level of depressing and shallow.
    - olivermarks 9y ago
      The rate card on the Bloomberg article says it all: get enough 'followers' and you are into big money. Whether those followers are real, bots, or created by insiders at Instagram is open to examination. Gary Vaynerchuk and his company Vaynermedia have played a role in making the big advertising holding companies see perceived value in 'influencer relations'. Vaynerchuk's (2.2 million followers) instagram presence reminds me of Chairman Mao's little red book, with endless exhortations to strive and succeed. https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en Glassdoor suggests a different reality at his company https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-Reviews-E482441.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-Reviews-E48244...
      - 9y ago
stayregular 9y ago
>When Instagram decided to shutdown about 30 accounts related to cannabis last year, a former employee tried charging people up to $7,500 to reactivate them since he still had access to the feature. He was found out, and his access was officially terminated, according to James. I've had multiple accounts deactivated for cannabis, and seen hundreds of other weedy IGs deleted -- while businesses like the official High Times sit loftily at over 1 million followers AND verified. It doesn't surprise me that there are shady backdoor deals going on.
- olivermarks 9y ago
  This brings into sharp focus how powerful social networks are in deciding who gets seen and promoted. Fascinating.
- inuhj 9y ago
  I run a cannabis company in CA. After seeing my friend's account reactivated a few months ago he told me he paid 3k for the service. When that IG employee got fired there were 5 cannabusiness accounts I knew of that were deleted on the same day. All people who paid the restoration fee.
  - inuhj 9y ago
    To the comments below who think IG isn't that important--I close upwards of $40,000 of monthly recurring revenue from IG outreach every month. It's value can't be understated.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      With what type of business? Selling goods?
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        I run a cannabis company in CA. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15157674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15157674
noobermin 9y ago
If Instagram were, say a government space, this would be called corruption; but, it is a private company operating a defacto public space, so it is seen as...employees disobeying their employer? Or what? This is precisely the issue with company operated spaces: when there is shady crap going down, there's no accountability.
- quuquuquu 9y ago
  Hmm, interesting. I think this one is more "buyer beware". Government corruption is a when a missile manufacturer donates heavily to a pro-war candidate, and then that candidate ends up in the cabinet. 6 months later, bombing campaigns are in full force. A private company, or a private employee, selling eyeballs, legitimacy, and influence... it's extremely flawed, but I'm not sure it has a horrifically large effect on the world.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    I concur the effect on the world is rather small here, the closest analogy I can think of are non-competitive bidding for a local park's construction that goes to the governor's friend. Another was Chris Christie lounging on a beach that was closed to the public. The latter is politically distasteful, but really didn't hurt anyone. It still was corruption of a sort.
    - quuquuquu 9y ago
      This all does sound like heft nepotism and corruption! On a per transaction basis, damage existe but is tolerable. At scale, it is nightmarish. I'm not sure the same can be said about buying Verifications, but too much of anything could be bad!!
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      Not to justify his overall behavior, or the idea of 'closing' a beach when nothing is wrong with it, but being in his backyard is not really an abuse of power.
- 9y ago
cm2187 9y ago
And I wouldn't be surprised to learn one day that some facebook employees would be running face recognitions for private detectives... Human nature is what it is.
robtaylor 9y ago
Pretty sure this type of thing happens everywhere - years ago I paid for some dofollow links to be placed on specific aged topic based BBC news articles. £500 a link was paid... a few days later they appeared. They lasted about three years if I recall right before disappearing for whatever reason.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Was the traffic worth that? If so, would it have been worth it if the corrupt employee had been reassigned after three months rather than three years?
  - bira 9y ago
    He did it for SEO purposes most likely. "Was the effect on your rankings worth it ?" would be a better question.
    - robtaylor 9y ago
      SEO was the idea behind it, authority websites etc. Was a long time ago so could not give authoritative answer on traffic, the aim of post was to highlight that staff at orgs can be er, pliable it seems. For the record I never dealt with someone at the BBC just a chap who said he could get links added - took a punt for a few grand and he came through. Interestingly I have just googled the guy... and the company is more formal now but still offers 'natural' editorial links including the BBC as an example.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  A website can sell links like you're describing.. that's not illegal. I've seen ad networks that only sold those types of links. What's being described in the article is commercial bribery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the BBC doesn't actually sell those links, it was probably a similar situation to the article.
rdtsc 9y ago
I think in light of the recent fight against hate speech and fake news, there will soon be a "silencing as a service" (SaaS). Where you can pay large amounts of money to Facebook and Google and they will go and disable accounts and ban various segments of users. Maybe you are Pepsi and get tired of Coke getting ahead selling more sugared drinks than you, and so you pay Facebook to take down accounts of anyone mentioning Coke in a positive light. Then maybe they'll sell a reactivation service, where you can pay even more money to have your account reactivated and so on.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  Isn't it already possible to pay for fake reports which results in takedowns of legitimate youtube videos and similar content? I'd put good money on these services being offered today.
ben_jones 9y ago
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook often tote the protections they have on user data, i.e. datasets are anonymized and access is tightly controlled. But does this extend to all acquired companies? Do acquired companies that may have lesser protections ever get access to the parent company's data?

190 points by gfredtech 9y ago

I don't see the point of having a "select" verification on social networks. It should be for everyone, like a bank where you verify using ID and a webcam... it could even be a paid service. Making them exclusive and intransparent is shady. Just like username colors on social platforms where people pay $15,000 to make them look special.

Edmond 9y ago
There is an even better approach to internet information verification at scale: https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/ https://www.cipheredtrust.com/doc/
- TheAceOfHearts 9y ago
  Interesting link. I hadn't seen that before. Do you know if anyone is actually using this? From glancing over the docs, my big complaint is that it's not a federated system. Why is trust anchor management centralized?
  - Edmond 9y ago
    It could be federated, basically the same API could be implemented or a common implementation can be used by a number of service providers...still not sure though what federation by itself adds to the core solution. I am the developer and have tried so far in vain to get the IRS to integrate. The IRS is the single largest data source for basic identity attributes in the US so integrating that would essentially allow almost every adult in the US to be able to leverage it. I have developed a Chrome extension to allow the use of IRS tax transcript information but obviously it is a very high bar considering the sensitivity of that information. ....still work in progress
CM30 9y ago
Agreed 100%. Why not do things like how Google Webmaster Tools does it, where you fill in a form, get a file to post on your website and have it auto verify based on that? Or for those who aren't website/service owners, a system where you verify your name or address? The current exclusive system on sites like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and others is awkward and makes no real sense whatsoever. Same with the also awkward trend of 'deverifying' people that say something 'offensive' or 'brek the rules'. You don't stop being the same person when you upset someone. Really, sites and social networks need to just treat verification like anything else.
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  That’s because it’s not for verification; It’s a status symbol. Also, this is just speculation, but if saying certain things could get you unverified, and being unverified would lower your ranking some places and hurt your value, a website could censor what they deem “hate” speech simply with the threat of unverification. You can’t really cry censorship over a little icon.
  - CM30 9y ago
    Yeah, it's definitely a status symbol as it is now. But my question remains the same. Why treat it like a status symbol? I don't see a reason why this should be something fancy that only an elite few should have. Why not have a different system for marking elite users which is based on some sort of merit (or actual real world worth) rather than just a vague sense of name recognition? Just seems like they're misusing the concept, and that a system which does away with the 'prestige' aspect of verification would do equally well on a user level.
romanovcode 9y ago
> people pay $15,000 In 90% of the cases it's not the people who are paying. The companies that people are advertising are paying for the most part.
criddell 9y ago
I don't get it either. There's clearly value in the verification. Why don't they try to capture that?
- jessaustin 9y ago
  The firm attempts to use that value to make the platform itself more valuable. The employee captures it more directly, because fuck the platform. Many problems in business are principal-agent problems.
dawnerd 9y ago
Twitter opened theirs up but it's really just a queue for a denial email. You can meet all of their requirements and still be denied.
dilemma 9y ago
It wouldn't be valuable if everyone had it.
vbezhenar 9y ago
One interesting way for secure identification is using local government-issued certificates. In Kazakhstan every citizen can request a digital certificate which is signed by a central authority. Many other countries use similar technologies. Those certificates could be used for identification. But I believe that there are laws about storing people's information, so you might have to comply with that.
- hatsunearu 9y ago
  Korea has something like this too. Any citizen can pay a small fee to get a digital verification cert, which contains a private-public key pair and a digital authentication signature from a trusted authority, who has been vetted by a nationwide system. Alternatively, one can sign up for a bank account and get a cert for free. This is used to login to online banking stuff, government business (taxes etc) and online activity. Fun thing is that the trust tree terminates at the government or via a trust web made by the banks. The reason for this is that when they were making the system, the academics and government officials had a bit of a disagreement and made two systems. Korean crypto is pretty crazy. Read about XEED and the decade long battle with MS ActiveX.
  - hatsunearu 9y ago
    Few mistakes, its actually called SEED and the crypto committee were all academics and the split happened among them.

olivermarks 9y ago

Presumably paying 15kUsD for a blue spot is worth it for some -fashion industry etc - and the investment will pay for itself. I never heard of the blue spot being particularly important though, my understanding was that parading an effortlessly fashionable and beautiful life was what got the attention. Great piece on bloomberg from last year on how a journalist recreated himself as an instagram influencer. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessions-of-an-instagram-influencer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-30/confessio...

Simon_says 9y ago
After watching that video I find the whole Instagram phenomenon so bizarre.
- 659087 9y ago
  The whole idea of someone staging most of their life to impress people on the internet, makes me physically uncomfortable to think about - even before considering the fact that they have "fans", which makes the whole thing even more awkward. It's like "reality" TV and celebrity worship taken to a whole new level of depressing and shallow.
  - olivermarks 9y ago
    The rate card on the Bloomberg article says it all: get enough 'followers' and you are into big money. Whether those followers are real, bots, or created by insiders at Instagram is open to examination. Gary Vaynerchuk and his company Vaynermedia have played a role in making the big advertising holding companies see perceived value in 'influencer relations'. Vaynerchuk's (2.2 million followers) instagram presence reminds me of Chairman Mao's little red book, with endless exhortations to strive and succeed. https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/garyvee/?hl=en Glassdoor suggests a different reality at his company https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-Reviews-E482441.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VaynerMedia-Reviews-E48244...
    - 9y ago

stayregular 9y ago

>When Instagram decided to shutdown about 30 accounts related to cannabis last year, a former employee tried charging people up to $7,500 to reactivate them since he still had access to the feature. He was found out, and his access was officially terminated, according to James. I've had multiple accounts deactivated for cannabis, and seen hundreds of other weedy IGs deleted -- while businesses like the official High Times sit loftily at over 1 million followers AND verified. It doesn't surprise me that there are shady backdoor deals going on.

olivermarks 9y ago
This brings into sharp focus how powerful social networks are in deciding who gets seen and promoted. Fascinating.
inuhj 9y ago
I run a cannabis company in CA. After seeing my friend's account reactivated a few months ago he told me he paid 3k for the service. When that IG employee got fired there were 5 cannabusiness accounts I knew of that were deleted on the same day. All people who paid the restoration fee.
- inuhj 9y ago
  To the comments below who think IG isn't that important--I close upwards of $40,000 of monthly recurring revenue from IG outreach every month. It's value can't be understated.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    With what type of business? Selling goods?
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      I run a cannabis company in CA. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15157674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15157674

noobermin 9y ago

If Instagram were, say a government space, this would be called corruption; but, it is a private company operating a defacto public space, so it is seen as...employees disobeying their employer? Or what? This is precisely the issue with company operated spaces: when there is shady crap going down, there's no accountability.

quuquuquu 9y ago
Hmm, interesting. I think this one is more "buyer beware". Government corruption is a when a missile manufacturer donates heavily to a pro-war candidate, and then that candidate ends up in the cabinet. 6 months later, bombing campaigns are in full force. A private company, or a private employee, selling eyeballs, legitimacy, and influence... it's extremely flawed, but I'm not sure it has a horrifically large effect on the world.
- noobermin 9y ago
  I concur the effect on the world is rather small here, the closest analogy I can think of are non-competitive bidding for a local park's construction that goes to the governor's friend. Another was Chris Christie lounging on a beach that was closed to the public. The latter is politically distasteful, but really didn't hurt anyone. It still was corruption of a sort.
  - quuquuquu 9y ago
    This all does sound like heft nepotism and corruption! On a per transaction basis, damage existe but is tolerable. At scale, it is nightmarish. I'm not sure the same can be said about buying Verifications, but too much of anything could be bad!!
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    Not to justify his overall behavior, or the idea of 'closing' a beach when nothing is wrong with it, but being in his backyard is not really an abuse of power.
9y ago

cm2187 9y ago

And I wouldn't be surprised to learn one day that some facebook employees would be running face recognitions for private detectives... Human nature is what it is.

robtaylor 9y ago

Pretty sure this type of thing happens everywhere - years ago I paid for some dofollow links to be placed on specific aged topic based BBC news articles. £500 a link was paid... a few days later they appeared. They lasted about three years if I recall right before disappearing for whatever reason.

jessaustin 9y ago
Was the traffic worth that? If so, would it have been worth it if the corrupt employee had been reassigned after three months rather than three years?
- bira 9y ago
  He did it for SEO purposes most likely. "Was the effect on your rankings worth it ?" would be a better question.
  - robtaylor 9y ago
    SEO was the idea behind it, authority websites etc. Was a long time ago so could not give authoritative answer on traffic, the aim of post was to highlight that staff at orgs can be er, pliable it seems. For the record I never dealt with someone at the BBC just a chap who said he could get links added - took a punt for a few grand and he came through. Interestingly I have just googled the guy... and the company is more formal now but still offers 'natural' editorial links including the BBC as an example.
rgbrenner 9y ago
A website can sell links like you're describing.. that's not illegal. I've seen ad networks that only sold those types of links. What's being described in the article is commercial bribery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_bribery
- icebraining 9y ago
  Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the BBC doesn't actually sell those links, it was probably a similar situation to the article.

rdtsc 9y ago

I think in light of the recent fight against hate speech and fake news, there will soon be a "silencing as a service" (SaaS). Where you can pay large amounts of money to Facebook and Google and they will go and disable accounts and ban various segments of users. Maybe you are Pepsi and get tired of Coke getting ahead selling more sugared drinks than you, and so you pay Facebook to take down accounts of anyone mentioning Coke in a positive light. Then maybe they'll sell a reactivation service, where you can pay even more money to have your account reactivated and so on.

ben_jones 9y ago
Isn't it already possible to pay for fake reports which results in takedowns of legitimate youtube videos and similar content? I'd put good money on these services being offered today.

ben_jones 9y ago

Big tech companies like Google and Facebook often tote the protections they have on user data, i.e. datasets are anonymized and access is tightly controlled. But does this extend to all acquired companies? Do acquired companies that may have lesser protections ever get access to the parent company's data?