Opaque guerrilla advertising on Facebook: Have you been tagged?

You shouldn't believe these status reports!

What exactly happens: Completely inconspicuous private profiles suddenly post an unusual status message. This status message talks about how much weight you have lost with the help of a specific product:

I have been using this product for about 3 weeks and it really helps. I have lost 17 pounds so far. I plan to continue using it and update my progress. I have become very confident! [+LINK]

You can usually see some kind of video underneath, but it has no connection to the text. Some friends are also tagged, which probably has less to do with the text and more to do with the video. It looks exactly like this:

You can clearly see that the texts are identical and represent a translation. These postings all contain a shortened link. We already know what exactly happens:

The text is a social media bait in an advertising model that takes place in three stages. In this case, bait means a status message on social media that works like clickbait: it arouses the curiosity of users. These messages build the desire to follow a link.

The link in the bait leads to a website. This website is the second step of the advertising method and turns out to be fake news. A web page loads that calls itself “News Channel.” There it is written about a weight loss product:

Rather, this is classic commercial fake news. Since the content is completely fictitious, it is called fabricated content . Commercial fake news includes the following elements:

• Commercial fake news contains pseudo-editorial content that has no truth and does not have to have any truth. Likewise, the content does not have to be related to the headline.
• They present themselves in the form of a news website, which ultimately isn't one.
• The content speaks to a desire/fear (in this case just desire).
• The author doesn't care about the content, it's about displaying advertising or effectively incorporating advertising links

The article on the website is about presenting a product as effectively as possible. A weight loss product is heavily advertised in the text, but also next to it and underneath it. In the end, this also includes a large number of supposed user comments that report on how successful this model is. What looks like a high level of positive interaction is nothing more than part of the advertising scam.

If you follow the product links that are built into the pseudo-editorial text on the website, you will end up in an affiliate sales program. In the end there is a trading model. This is also the last step of the advertising method:

Whoever wrote the pseudo-editorial article has an interest in ensuring that the readership also buys this product. These are often inferior or overpriced products, if they are delivered at all.

It is important that the fake story sounds as credible as possible in advance, but at the same time also has a high potential for virality.

Open question

But how did this advertising text described at the beginning make it onto the timelines of inconspicuous profiles? Unfortunately we can't answer that, but all Facebook users who have this text in their postings should urgently change their password, remove all linked devices and check the installed Facebook applications to see if there isn't a bad egg involved.

Applications that are no longer used should be deleted, or you should take a close look at the permissions of those that you use. Here you can go directly to your apps.