The Hidden Economy of Spam
By Karan Lala, Integrity Institute Resident Fellow
Social media companies take great pride in the impact they have on small businesses around the world. According to Meta, over 10 million businesses have used Facebook advertising, “the majority of which are small to medium-sized”. TikTok’s “Small Wins” campaign highlights dozens of stories of small brands increasing their reach hundredfold overnight. YouTube claims its ecosystem added $20.5 billion to the US GDP in 2020. These figures are impressive, but they ignore the darker economy enabled by the product choices made at every level of each company. This is the underground economy of spam.Spam is so much more than that one Facebook friend who reposts the same meme into every group they’re in, the countless bot replies on any tweet about cryptocurrency, or the infamous Rayban ad. In fact, spam is big business. It’s backed by a microcosm of the modern economy - complete with individuals offering goods and services for sale; standardized methods and preferred currencies to conduct transactions; “property” developers and landlords; wholesalers and boutique vendors; and so much more. This shadow economy responds in real time to external forces, uses actuarial science to price in risk, and rewards those who innovate. Like any real marketplace, it contains its own subset of fraudsters, scammers, and other bad actors. And much to the dismay of this former integrity worker, this all happens in plain sight - hosted on the very platforms these actors abuse. In order to understand this world, I infiltrated one of the largest communities for spammers in South Asia with my real Facebook account. My goal is to shine a light on the world of spam to help you understand this shadow economy, what makes it tick, and what platforms can learn from it to keep their communities healthy. Before we begin, I want to note a few things:All screenshots shown in this paper were taken by me, of assets (user accounts, pages, groups, etc.) that were live at time of writing.While this paper primarily traces a series of actors on Facebook, similar harms exist on every other major social media platform. Similarly, I focused on following a community in South Asia throughout this paper; similar communities exist on Facebook and other platforms all over the world.
The best way to understand this world is to take part - so let’s do just that. In order to make money, you need the means to reach a large audience, content to capture their attention, and a way to turn that attention into profit. Step 1: Get in the game
Making an account isn’t as easy as it used to be. For example, Facebook actioned 1.6 billion fake accounts in Q1 2022. Each platform also seems to do a good job at specifically policing newly created accounts. This would all be much easier if someone else could do the work for you.Well, it’s your lucky day! There’s a public “Facebook Old Id Buy Sell Group” with over 3,000 vendors, offering everything from 30-day aged pages to accounts over a decade old. You might even get lucky and score a special deal for Eid. 
A public Facebook group where members can buy/sell Facebook assets
Assets available for purchase: 30-day aged pages for ~$0.06; an account from 2009 for ~$2.11; Eid sale: 30k followers for ~$4.75
It’s important to note that not all accounts are made equal - specific facets of their identity can play a large role in determining their value. One such feature is the account’s location. Based on current market rates, expect to pay a premium for assets from the United States compared to rest-of-world. 
American assets command a ~40% premium, based on current market rates
Running low on capital at the moment? Why not rent a group on a monthly basis! Much akin to a vacant retail lot on a busy road, an enterprising individual could surely make a return on their investment here with a little elbow grease.
A relatively new group with 1 million members available for rent on a monthly basis
If picking through this Buy/Sell group seems too tedious, hop onto Facebook Marketplace instead.
Facebook assets available for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Assets purchased here will typically be more expensive than those found in Buy/Sell groups.
And just to make sure you aren’t putting all of your eggs in one basket, why not also check out what else is on the market? Twitter, YouTube, Tiktok, and Instagram are also ripe with opportunities. 
Opportunities to diversify across platforms
Lastly, if none of the offerings meet your specific needs, you can always put out a request and let the market respond to your demand.
Specify your needs, and let the invisible hand of the market deliver.
After a few DMs and a short shopping spree, you’re ready to hit the ground running. Step 2: Get legitimate
Turns out that taking ownership of your new purchases is a little more difficult than imagined. Facebook’s automated systems have been monitoring your new asset, and are now demanding that you verify your identity before you can continue. Freeing yourself from this trap might be beyond your expertise.Thankfully, there is a community of over 45,000 members offering an extensive suite of products and services to solve your predicament - and it only takes 10 seconds to join. 
One of the largest communities on Facebook offering a complete suite of policy-violating services
A quick search helps you find a number of service providers who have experience dealing with recovery of locked accounts. Some can even generate fake passports, driving licenses, or smart cards in your name to bypass the most stringent restrictions placed by platforms. You can often validate their previous work by looking through their portfolio. “Hackar” @Zuckerberg.213 seems to be a great match for your needs. 
“Bd Hackar help Team”, AKA @Zuckerberg.213 and their portfolio of services
Of course, doing your due diligence is important - many “hackers” are themselves fraudsters, quick to take your money and run without actually getting you unblocked. Some may even steal your asset for themselves.
Buyer Beware!
Thankfully, @Zuckerberg.213 delivered - you’re back in the game. Step 3: Get paid
At this point, you must be getting antsy - all this expenditure, and you have yet to make a return on your investment. Traditionally, there are two avenues used by spammers to make money from these practices:Sell productsShow ads
Let’s discuss each of these in turn.3.1 - Selling Products
Selling products can be a lucrative business - whether or not you actually intend on delivering them. By using recycled memes, clickbait links, or other highly engaging pieces of content, you can build a captive audience. This audience can then be directed towards e-commerce pages owned by yourself or by business partners. If done right, your e-commerce site could even become one of the top 10 most widely viewed links on the platform without being detected by Facebook’s integrity systems, like alltrendytees.com did in Q1 2022. The trick to monetization here is quantity. In order to drive as much traffic as possible to your e-commerce page, you need to (a) get sufficiently large populations of users to see your link and (b) utilize clickbait and other tactics to increase click-through rate. If enough people see the link to your e-commerce site, some are bound to click on it. Of those who click the link and visit the site, some are bound to purchase a product. If the objective is to increase the top of the funnel (the number of potential users who will see the link to your e-commerce site), utilize highly compelling content or memes and package that together with a link to your site. Post this content frequently in large groups to maximize the number of people who will see it. Use multiple accounts and pages to shield your identity, evade automated spam thresholds, and make your link appear more popular than it actually is.
Re-packaging old memes with the same e-commerce link to reach thousands of users per post.
You could also take advantage of current cultural or political events to sell products. Users with strong sentiments on either side of divisive issues often vote with their wallet. Playing up themes of loyalty or scarcity may convince even the most skeptical customer to part with their cash. You may not even need to deliver any product at the end, if you can settle the transaction and move the money to another account before anyone notices.
Trump Coins are quite the rage. Many are free, just pay shipping and handling. Some customers have yet to receive theirs.
3.2 - Showing Ads
Platforms like Facebook require users to jump through a series of hoops before they are able to activate monetization on their assets, for good reason. Platforms don’t want unscrupulous actors to use growth hacking to make money; advertisers aren’t keen on their brands being juxtaposed with low-quality content. This step also often requires meeting certain engagement thresholds. There are a few ways of going about this. You could try to do this yourself, but meeting the threshold of 600,000 watch minutes to activate monetization for Facebook pages is not easy. Luckily, you have both self-service and full-service options at your fingertips. For those willing to put in the time and effort, it is possible to purchase the right to share videos you create in high-membership groups. This is often a way to monetize as a group admin. 
With a total group audience of ~100 million users, getting 600,000 watch minutes should be no problem. Here, the seller suggests that it can be done in 1-2 days.
For those who’d rather outsource the work, you can simply purchase organic watchtime.
Unlock monetization on your page for $30.
Or, you could bypass the whole thing by purchasing an asset that has already been monetized.
Assets that are already approved for monetization available for purchase. Notice the rather generic names these pages have - “Amazing Viral Videos”, “Viral Show”, and “World Best Funny Videos”. This is a common audience building tactic.
Once monetization has been activated, Facebook will automatically place ads in any videos you post. Although there are many other ways to monetize your content on the platform, this is the ideal tactic for inauthentic actors. Just remember to schedule and post video content on a regular basis to collect ad revenue, either by using Facebook’s native post scheduling tools or third-party apps. You don’t have to generate any content yourself - there are several YouTube tutorials on how to steal videos from other individuals or platforms for monetization purposes.
A course from Facebook Blueprint, an official training tool for marketers, titled “How Can I Make Money on Facebook?”
One thing to note is that strategic decisions by Facebook’s product teams can have a significant effect on the prices of these services. For example, after Facebook began prioritizing video in Feed ranking, demand for watchtime went through the roof - as did prices. Another important thing to know is that these actors don’t need to rely on press releases from the company to make decisions - they detect and react in real-time to their engagement metrics to understand what ranking or integrity changes have shipped. These communities then relay any changes the platform is making via WhatsApp, Telegram, or other group messaging systems. Members of the community will often share their activity and respective engagement data with others as a form of A/B testing of the updated platform algorithms. Any static thresholds are thus easily discovered, quickly shared with the network, and necessary evasive maneuvers are taken (e.g. reducing the number of posts or reshares for 24 hours; increasing originality of content; or in the worst case, deactivating the profile entirely). 3.3 - Getting Paid by the Platform Directly
The recent race between platforms to capture the short-video market has upended this shadow economy and unlocked a new revenue stream previously unknown to most of these actors - receiving massive checks from Meta itself.You see, advertising income is usually steady and constant. It’s a dependable paycheck, but unless you own one of the largest pages on the platform, each individual check won’t be eye-popping. You may have to wait to accumulate any significant returns. As seen so far, this time value of money is priced into each transaction we’ve conducted - assets change hands and services are offered for anywhere between a few cents to tens of dollars. The Reels Play Bonus Program, launched in the US in late 2021 and later rolled out in markets around the world, has unlocked the potential for these actors to receive anywhere from $1,200 to $35,000 per page or account, per month from Meta itself. Intended to boost creation of Reels on Facebook and Instagram, this bonus program requires its participants to create up to 150 Reels within 30 days in order to hit certain performance targets. The more users view and engage with your Reel, the more you get paid. Bonuses are also handed out at various levels - some pages are only eligible for the $1,200 bonus, while others may be eligible for up to $35,000. Access to this bonus program is limited to actors deemed eligible by the platform - and many members of these Buy/Sell/Monetization groups are eligible. 
As a result of this market intervention by Meta, we are now seeing larger and larger transactions occur within this hidden economy. Assets with the Reels Play bonus are selling for hundreds to thousands of dollars per page; a single Reels Play eligible page might earn you more than the rest of your portfolio combined. 
Various sellers I contacted. Farhan wanted ~$104 for his page. Hasanur could earn up to $21,000 by selling his 7 pages; a potential buyer could earn up to $245,000 from Meta if they generate sufficiently popular Reels.
Whereas our previous transactions were measured in the tens of dollars, the prices here are significantly steeper. After conversations with various sellers, I learned that Reels Play bonuses are sold for ~9% of the bonus value ($1,200 bonus pages were available for ~$104, $35,000 bonus pages for $3,000). This 9% was consistent across every level of bonus page available. This equilibrium may indicate that the market believes that roughly 9% of overall Reels Bonus Play eligible pages will actually be able to generate the content needed for full payout. It would be interesting to know if this matches Facebook’s internal data about this program. There may be an opportunity for arbitrage here. One last hurdle - payment requires tax verification. Typically, you will need to provide a tax ID issued by your government. This ID must be unique and uniquely tied to your asset within the Facebook database. If you don’t have a valid one or have already used your real ID for another asset, don’t worry - there are service providers to help with this as well. 
User offering tax verification services to help collect Reels Play payment.
Step 4: Get bigger
Congratulations - with multiple assets now generating positive cash flow, you’ve officially mastered the game. As long as you don’t get complacent or cocky, your assets will continue to monetize under the radar of Facebook’s integrity systems. You may want to think about investing some of the returns back into the business - time to (a) buy some ads to turbocharge your reach and (b) simplify operations by consolidating management of your various assets under one roof. This can be accomplished by acquiring a Business Manager account. Once again, the verification process for Business Manager accounts is tedious and time-consuming - for good reason. By now, you should know the drill. Let’s go shopping.
Business Manager Buy/Sell groups will typically segregate themselves by geography. Unlimited-spend-enabled, verified Business Manager accounts are their bread-and-butter.
Takeaways
Spam is a far more complicated problem to address than those outside the field of Integrity would initially have you believe (ahem, Mr. Musk). Platforms cannot simply “clear out” spam, short of shutting down the entire platform itself. They can take measures to slow these actors down, improve their detection algorithms, and make monetization harder to achieve, but given sufficient incentive, adversarial actors will always find a way around these obstacles. Integrity is a perpetual cat-and-mouse game. It is also worth noting that the example outlined here is perhaps the most benign case of what spam can be. We know that Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) used similar tactics to sell merchandise as a source of revenue, and utilized customer data to divide users into audiences that were micro-targeted by the group for hyper-partisan ads and other purposes. These tactics affected Americans on both sides of the aisle and drove a deeper wedge between communities during an already divisive period. Similarly, there is a great deal of overlap between the spam industry and the political disinformation industry in Asia. Spam isn’t just a nuisance; it can bring down democracies. This has implications on broader strategy. Any system that is designed to work for billions of users will inherently have edge cases and modes of failure. Platforms cannot simply patch inherent product failures - for example, if a platform’s ranking algorithm is geared towards maximizing engagement over all else, there is no after-the-fact integrity system that can truly solve the content quality problem that creates. Product must be designed with integrity in mind - it just doesn’t work as well as an afterthought. Based on my analysis of this specific spammer community, this does not work:Arbitrary static thresholding: each of these asset Buy/Sell groups recognized the value of a 30-day old account. Something happens after 30 days that makes Facebook easier to exploit. There’s a reason why that market exists. As mentioned earlier, these groups have developed techniques to detect when integrity or ranking systems begin to have an effect on the content they are producing. In this adversarial space, static thresholds become obsolete the day they are put into effect.Integrity without considering the “Actor” component: Content moderation on its own misses a lot. Most of the content posted by these actors isn’t inherently policy-violating, but it reduces the overall quality of content on the platform. In order to address the issue fully, one must consider who is talking, what they’re saying, and how they’re saying it - the actor producing the content, the content itself, and how that content is being presented and shared on the platform. It doesn’t make sense that “Nancy” from Omaha (who made her account last week, has 10 friends - all registered on the same IP address, and is now an admin of 5 high-reach pages) is using a Bangladeshi ISP - this needs to factor into any decision a platform makes about “Nancy’s” content.Letting Integrity trail Product: If your platform is pushing head-first into short-video, make sure there is sufficient manpower in Integrity focusing on short-video before the shift is made. The fact that Facebook assets are available for sale on Facebook Marketplace is both comical and an egregious oversight from an Integrity perspective.
And here’s what does:The “trust” model: this is something I’ll explore further in a future paper, but the basic idea is to unlock higher risk features only after “trust” is earned. Trust is not simply a derivative of age, but rather genuine, authentic engagement, with a consistent identity, sustained over a period of time. Once you have demonstrated that you are a trustworthy actor, you may reap the benefits of virality and monetization, but not before.Stricter controls around asset ownership: Ownership is power. Transfers in ownership across pages and groups, especially after they have reached a massive audience, are highly suspect and ought to be treated with greater importance.Limited Originality of Content check: I must give props to the teams at Meta and Google who have implemented the Limited Originality of Content (LOC) check on their respective platforms. This was the one issue that I saw in debugging groups over and over again. While far from perfect (given the number of vendors who had workarounds available for sale), we must recognize that friction like this can make a meaningful dent in the problem.
Lastly, I want to re-emphasize that platforms don’t need to make every spam tactic impossible in order to make a difference - basic product friction can make it prohibitively expensive. You don’t need to make spam impossible for these actors; you simply need to make it less profitable per hour. However, as these examples demonstrate, we still have a long way to go.