Described in a report in Science tool tracks the cost behind building an army of fake social media accounts, which can be used for everything from boosting a lie to running a financial fraud. To be clear, the researchers aren’t encouraging people to take part – far from it. Instead, they wanted to chart out how online manipulation works at scale.

They focused on one key choke point: To create fake accounts on social media platforms or messenger services, users often have to verify themselves through a code sent to their phone via SMS – and there are companies that buy SIM cards in bulk to then sell these verifications. This gray market operates out in the open, with companies widely advertising the price of an SMS verification on different platforms in different countries.

When the authors looked for abnormalities in their data, they found that prices for SMS-verified Telegram and WhatsApp accounts spiked just before major elections – an indication of rising demand. This uptick wasn’t observed for other platforms such as X or Instagram. In future work, the researchers hope to expand the index to track the price of fake likes and entire fake accounts.

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/want-sway-election-here-s-how-much-fake-online-accounts-cost

Another high-profile case has interested scientists. Read now