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> Police got wind and arrested them I understand how this breaks ToS, but how was this illegal?

• renewiltord 6y ago
  They were Chinese nationals who were 'working' in Thailand without a permit. That's why immigration police arrested them. Of course, the police then thought they were running call center scams (which are illegal there) until they came clean about the operation. The reason they were in Thailand is that there's less scrutiny there on SIM cards and low smartphone fees. Ultimately, though, KYC requirements do exist on Thai pre-paid plans (post-paid plans are effectively user-tied anyway) so they also got hit by the smuggling SIMs charge. Ultimately, lots of illegal stuff going on. Just not where you'd expect.
  • peterkelly 6y ago
    Some details about the SIM cards they were using here: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1272351/nbtc-all-sim-cards-properly-registered https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1272351/nbtc-al...
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  Offering someone a paid service to increase engagement on social media, and then doing that by having people in click farms to increase the engagement metric without actually increasing engagement is fraud. Of course it's illegal.
  • dooglius 6y ago
    Who says the click farm was offering such a service? It seems to me the offer is clicking things repetitively for money. You can argue that in some cases the farm was an accessory to fraud in that it knew or should have known its clients were engaging in fraud (e.g. if the client is the app owner), is that what you're getting at?
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      > Who says the click farm was offering such a service? Why else do you think they were doing it? They just really like clicking things?
      • dooglius 6y ago
        They click things because people pay them to, for a variety of reasons. Were some of the people paying them engaging in fraud? Probably.