Facebook has had enough and is once again taking legal action against another company that sells fake engagement and followers on Instagram.
Fake likes and followers are a plague on social media. For real followers, for brands that still hire influencers based on their social “worth,” and for platforms of course. To take action against these companies Facebook is resorting to legal action. After suing a number of companies and individuals in China recently, the company is now also taking legal action against an Instagram bot seller in New Zealand.
Facebook claims that Social Media Series Limited, a New Zealand-based company run by Arend Nollen, Leon Hedges, and David Pasanen, has ignored the company’s requests to stop selling fake and automated engagement for years. The lawsuit asks for the company’s business to be shut down and award damages for manipulating and undermining the integrity of the Instagram platform.
Social Media Series Limited has been running social media bot operations since 2015. To avoid several cease and desist notices from Facebook, the company had been operating under several different business names and websites.
However, despite Facebook’s efforts to continuously ban fake accounts and block “millions of artificial likes” originating from these websites, Social Media Series Limited was still very active, offering packages between $10 and $99 per week to users who wanted to grow their Instagram profiles artificially.
Image: Like Social
Facebook estimates the operation earned around $9.4 million through fake social media engagement.
As the lawsuit describes that “the group used a network of bots and Instagram accounts that they controlled to deliver millions of automated likes to their customers. Some of the Instagram accounts controlled by the defendants were responsible for tens of thousands of likes on a daily basis.”
Facebook vs. AREND NOLLEN, … by on Scribd
It is the first time that Facebook is actually taking legal action against a company whose business was solely to sell fake likes and followers. I don’t know about you, but that makes me very happy.
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