Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers

Source: 404 Media

Doublespeed, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) that uses a phone farm to manage at least hundreds of AI-generated social media accounts and promote products has been hacked. The hack reveals what products the AI-generated accounts are promoting, often without the required disclosure that these are advertisements, and allowed the hacker to take control of more than 1,000 smartphones that power the company.

The hacker, who asked for anonymity because he feared retaliation from the company, said he reported the vulnerability to Doublespeed on October 31. At the time of writing, the hacker said he still has access to the company’s backend, including the phone farm itself. Doublespeed did not respond to a request for comment.

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As I reported in October, Doublespeed raised $1 million from a16z as part of its “Speedrun” accelerator program, “a fast‐paced, 12-week startup program that guides founders through every critical stage of their growth.” Doublespeed uses generative AI to flood social media with accounts and posts to promote certain products on behalf of its clients. Social media companies attempt to detect and remove this type of astroturfing for violating their inauthentic behavior policies, which is why Doublespeed uses a bank of phones to emulate the behavior of real users. So-called “click farms” or “phone farms” often use hundreds of mobile phones to fake online engagement of reviews for the same reason.

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TikTok told me that its Community Guidelines make clear that it requires creators to label AI-generated or significantly edited content that shows realistic-looking scenes or people. After I reached out for comment, TikTok added a label to the Doublespeed-operated accounts I flagged indicating they're AI-generated.

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Read more: https://www.404media.co/hack-reveals-the-a16z-backed-phone-farm-flooding-tiktok-with-ai-influencers

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404 Media hasn't heard back from A16z, either.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen loves to talk about how wonderful AI is.

This sort of fraud is the reality, all too often.