“Like” Workers: e-reputation Counterfeiters

This article studies the role of the market for “fake likes” and “fake followers” in reputation marketing on social media, and analyses the particular nature of its products. The authors draw on diverse empirical sources to document the emergence, stabilization and functioning of the social counterfeit market. They show that the market for likes by the kilo articulates two distinct commercial worlds: the legitimate world of advertising on social media, and the condemned world of the manipulation of signals of renown. They describe how this market gradually became independent from social media marketing, offering products designed to meet purposes specific to a particular customer base. Fake likes thus fit within a broader range of online manipulations that take advantage of the automation and new signals populating digital spaces.