Manifesto
How attention flows on the web
The linked post highlights suspicious accounts that follow, like, play and repost content on SoundCloud. Where high numbers are seen as ‘better’ it is inevitable that automated services will be developed to game these figures.
Veritasium pointed out how fake followers were a major issue on Facebook, especially when it seems that paying for reach, as Facebook are effectively forcing Page owners to do, exacerbates the problem.
Because these platforms are businesses, where success is based on the activity of their user-base, you are rapidly led down the rabbit-hole of wondering how complicit these organisations are and how hard they are really working at policing this activity. Or even if they are behind some of it.
Further reading: 61.5% of web traffic is not human