The petition, filed Feb. 8, brings the ongoing debate over Facebook’s power to undermine democracies into a legal setting. The petitioner, Sam Rainsy, says that Hun Sen, the prime minister, “has used the network to threaten violence against political opponents and dissidents, disseminate false information, and manipulate his (and the regime’s) supposed popularity, thus seeking to foster an illusion of popular legitimacy.”
Rainsy alleges that Hun had used “click farms” to artificially boost his popularity, effectively buying “likes.” The petition says that Hun had achieved astonishing Facebook fame in a very short time, raising questions about whether this popularity was legitimate. For instance, the petition says, Hun Sen’s page is “liked” by 9.4 million people “even though only 4.8 million Cambodians use Facebook,” and that millions of these “likes” come from India, the Philippines, Brazil, and Myanmar, countries that don’t speak Khmer, the sole language the page is written in, and that are known for “click farms.”
According to leaked correspondence that the petition refers to, the Cambodian government’s payments to Facebook totaled $15,000 a day “in generating fake ‘likes’ and advertising on the network to help dissiminate[sic] the regime’s propaganda and drown-out any competing voices.”
Rainsy has been driven out of the country by the threat of lawsuits and prosecution over statements he made on Facebook about Hun and his inflated popularity. He wants Facebook to provide records of the Cambodian government’s advertising purchases, so he can defend himself in these cases. The petition also says that Hun Sen had violated Facebook’s community guidelines.
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Authoritarian leaders have long used tactics to fool the public into thinking support for them is widespread, from putting on massive pro-regime parades and suppressing anti-government demonstrations, to inflating vote tallies in elections. According to the petition, Facebook has become the latest tool to create this illusion of popularity.
Also see this New Republic article about “click farms:”
The Bot Bubble – How click farms have inflated social media currency
Google “buy Facebook likes” and you’ll see how easy it is to purchase black-market influence on the Internet: 1,000 Facebook likes for $29.99; 1,000 Twitter followers for $12; or any other type of fake social media credential, from YouTube views to Pinterest followers to SoundCloud plays. Social media is now the engine of the Internet, but that engine is running on some pretty suspect fuel.
Celebrities—and more minor personalities, like bloggers trying to get endorsement deals—have increasingly found their value measured in Facebook fans and Twitter followers, the payments they receive proportionate to their social media clout. Khloé Kardashian reportedly earns around $13,000 every time she tweets things like, “Want to know how Old Navy makes your butt look scary good?” to her 13.6 million followers. Politicians desire large followings for obvious reasons. Even ordinary people have discovered perks to having an extensive social media presence. Some employers, for instance, now require social media savvy for jobs in marketing, PR, or tech. All these logical incentives aside, the imperatives are not always rational. A growing body of research has begun to unpack the envy and insecurity that social media can generate—the pernicious sense that your friends are gaining Twitter followers much faster than you.
To help companies, celebrities, and everyday people boost their social media standing, onliners set up Internet stores—“click farms”—where customers can buy social media influence. Click farms can be found across the globe, but are most commonly based in the developing world.
But the stakes are much larger than pocket money. Researchers estimate that the market for fake Twitter followers was worth between $40 million and $360 million in 2013, and that the market for Facebook spam was worth $87 million to $390 million. Italian Internet security researcher Andrea Stroppa has suggested that the market for fake Facebook likes could exceed even that. International corporations like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, and Louis Vuitton have all been accused of employing click farms, and celebrities such as 50 Cent, Paris Hilton, and LeAnn Rimes, have been implicated in buying fake followers.
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