We have a strong incentive to prevent this kind of behavior on Instagram and staff a number of teams to detect fraudulent activity and shut it down,” Instagram spokesperson Gabe Madway told BuzzFeed News.Īsked if Instagram will disable Fuelgram, Madway declined to comment. “Fraudulent activity is bad for everyone. Aquaphor spokesperson Leslie Kickham told BuzzFeed News the company has severed its relationship with the Instagram influencer that was promoting its products. Walmart did not respond to requests for comment. The sponsored posts, an industry insider told BuzzFeed News, can fetch anywhere from $500 to $3,000 a pop. Multiple Fuelgram users who liked Viral Hippo’s intentionally terrible posts liked these posts as well. And as Instagram has increased in popularity, Fuelgram and other similar services - including automated engagement trading groups on the secure messaging app Telegram and Facebook itself - have become must-haves for many looking to build a business or gain exposure on the internet.īrands like Walmart, Kroger, and the skin treatment product Aquaphor showed up in sponsored, Fuelgram-juiced posts BuzzFeed News uncovered. It can mean more ad dollars, or a shot at a modeling contract or a gig, or more inquiries for a business. And there's a reasonable chance there's one in your feed right now, because Fuelgram is just one of a number of Instagram-juicing services available today, and the photo-sharing platform's engagement-rewarding algorithm incentivizes people to use it.įor Armand and others like her, the additional Instagram exposure Fuelgram provides can be quite valuable. Fuelgram makes posts appear more popular than they are, tricking Instagram's algorithm into spreading them further, sometimes right into the service's high-profile Explore tab. In other words, Fuelgram creates fake engagement from real Instagram accounts. It's called Fuelgram and, for a few dollars a month and access to your Instagram log-in credentials, it will use the accounts of everyone who paid that sum to like and comment on your posts - and it will use yours to do the same to theirs. Instagram says this is against its terms of service, but it continues to operate. Instead, they used a paid service that automatically likes and comments on other posts for them. These were real people, but not real likes - none of them clicked on the like button themselves.
The commenter wasn’t a bot nor were any of the accounts that liked the black square. “I really love this photo,” one commented. And yet within 24 hours, it amassed over 1,500 likes from a group that included a verified model followed by 296,000 people, a verified influencer followed by 228,000, a bunch of fitness coaches, some travel accounts, and various small businesses. There was nothing special about the photo, or the square, and certainly not the account that posted it. In late February, an Instagram account called Viral Hippo posted a photo of a black square.
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