Fake followers for Instagram's Threads are already on sale, as the app surges past 100 million users

Sydney Bradley
·2 min read
2

  • You can already buy followers for Instagram's Threads.

  • Insider viewed several websites offering to sell followers for Threads accounts.

  • Instagram has long battled troves of fake followers, purchases likes, and bots.

We are now a week into the existence of Threads and there's already a robust menu of followers you can buy on the internet.

From an offer of $7.50 for 100 followers, to $1,900 for 50,000 followers on Instagram's Threads app, paid engagement services and bot farms are pouncing on a new market, according to a review of a handful of sites by Insider.

Instagram has long battled bots and juiced engagement on the app. The platform has been deleting fake followers and likes for years, and Instagram even has a section about this behavior in its community guidelines.

"Help us stay spam-free by not artificially collecting likes, followers, or shares, posting repetitive comments or content, or repeatedly contacting people for commercial purposes without their consent," Instagram's community guidelines page reads.

Screengrab of different prices for fake followers on Threads
FameSavy is one of many services offering packages for followers on Threads.Screengrab/FameSavy

According to the influencer-marketing platform HypeAuditor, on average, about 13.8% of influencers' Instagram followers are categorized as "suspicious" accounts. HypeAuditor defines suspicious accounts as any Instagram page that appear to be bots or "use specific services for likes, comments, and followers," the company told Insider.

While the follower count metric still holds some weight, especially when it comes to securing and negotiating brand deals as an influencer, it isn't so clear how important follower count will be for Threads.

To start, followers aren't as prominently showcased on Threads as they are on Instagram (or Twitter, for that matter). The number itself is at the bottom of the bio and appears muted when stacked with other vibrant buttons and text. And when it comes to algorithms, ranking on Threads is more dependent on what content someone interacts with.

"We do rank posts lightly and show recommendations (posts from accounts you don't follow) in feed, which is particularly important for a new app before people follow enough accounts," head of Instagram Adam Mosseri wrote in a recent Thread reply.

Buying an influx of spam followers on Threads could very well do nothing to help an account grow or find success as a creator.

Meta did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider