Want more Twitter followers or likes on Insta? Here's how much you can buy it for (2024)

New Delhi,UPDATED: Oct 29, 2017 18:13 IST

Money may not buy you love, but it can certainly buy you "likes" in the virtual world.

Even as a controversy has erupted over automated bots, or bogus accounts, allegedly spearheading a surge in Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's social media popularity, an online bazaar of fudged viral videos, trends, likes, retweets and subscribers is booming in the country. Analysts say the game of internet popularity is ruled by those who are willing to fake it to make it while only a handful are genuine.

A Mail Today investigation has revealed that online agencies are offering millions of likes, reviews, viral videos and even negative online campaigns at a price. So, 1,000 likes on Instagram cost around Rs 200. About 1,000 Facebook page likes come for Rs 400-500 and 1,000 FB subscribers will cost close to Rs 1,600-2,000.

Social media teams trying to promote their clients or products through bots is not unusual but organised groups using fake accounts to push their agendas and political views daily on social networking websites make it look like a mass-movement.

"When terrorist Burhan Wani was gunned down by Indian soldiers, Pakistani techies were trying to trend a hashtag related to him on social media. My analysis showed they were using bots to get Wani related tags to trend in India," said cyber security expert Jiten Jain. Some of India's and the world's biggest celebrities and politicians have been accused of inflating their social media presence through the purchasing of followers. According to online marketing agencies, the definition of "mass following" as power to pull crowds at public gathering or political rallies is passe. Its meaning in the web world changed after hashtags and retweets came to life.

In India, activist Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement and the mass protests seeking justice for rape victim Nirbhaya were described as "Twitter uprisings" and "Facebook revolutions". But today the strength of social media platforms is more likely to be linked to their potential for manipulating public opinion and influencing elections. Companies even agree to run hate campaigns, but for a premium.

"I can get you one lakh likes in weeks but for that, along with using paid service of Facebook, I will have to use my tricks," said Anil Verma who runs an internet marketing company in Gurugram. When Verma was asked what "tricks" he will use to generate sudden traffic on all platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, he replied that his firm has a software which creates rapid traction for profiles so that genuine people get influenced by it.

This reporter posing as a restaurant owner asked another agency based out of Pune if it would run a damaging campaign against two competitors. The company not only agreed but promised that the rivals would never know why they got so many negative reactions and reviews. "We offer social media management service at Rs 15,000, but to run hate campaigns we charge twice the amount," said a representative of the firm.

A random search on the internet will throw up a flood of such agencies who are trying to sell likes, retweets and followers to the startups.

"No company, political party or celebrity is clean when it comes to genuine followers. Infact all of them are in the race for online popularity. Celebrity needs fastest views on their post, Politicians need maximum retweets while companies need high number of page likes. This game is manipulated using simple software and bots, which are not illegal but unethical in some cases," Jitin Jain said.

Racking up followers and likes on posts adds a sheen of legitimacy to small businesses or aspiring social-media influencers, observers say.

Cybercrime expert Kislay Chaudhary explained the modus operandi behind running and maintaining bots.

"These are a set of software which automatically performs the task given. First fake email ids are created using which bogus accounts are generated. Random names and pictures are assigned to such profiles so they appear genuine. Then using filters they start liking or following selected pages and later start retweeting and posting comments."

Chaudhary said several software actually help the companies evade the scrutiny of social media giants. "If a certain profile is posting frequent comment or liking pages then Facebook and Twitter block it for violation of policy. But using software, a timer can be set which can help avoid getting blocked," he said.

There are tools that can repost content thousands of times by replacing certain words with synonyms. This helps the account not seem like a bot.