Do you think you can believe what you see on social media?

Ask Trey Ratcliff, Robert Mueller and Mark Zuckerberg about this.

All three have pretty much confirmed the answer to the question this week.

Photographer Ratcliff has released a new book in which he explains how easy it was to create a fake Instagram account and play it with purchased subscribers, likes and comments, in exchange for cash offers, travel free and products. The title of the book: "Influence – How to fight your way to become rich on Instagram: influence fraud, selfies, anxiety, ego and delusional behavior in droves".

Then, the "Mueller Report", an analysis of the possible Russian collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign, was finally made public, even if deletions were issued. He highlighted how the Russians have exploited social media to sell their favorite candidate Donald Trump to public statements and reports.

And in the last confession about things much worse than it originally seemed, it appeared that Zuckerberg and his Facebook had stored "millions" of unencrypted Instagram user passwords on Facebook servers. Facebook had originally said that it was only "tens of thousands".

Photographer Trey Ratcliff (Photo: Michael Rubitschka)

How secure is your personal information on the social network?

I think we know the answer.

But let's take a look at Instagram, the site of happy people who look great, take a great and expensive vacation, have a lot of friends and lead a better life than you, it seems. The site is full of influencers, such as Kardashians, Zach King and Andrew Bachelor, whose sponsored posts usually feature them with handmade products.

According to Ratcliff, about $ 2 billion was spent on marketing influence in 2017, which is expected to grow to $ 10 billion by 2020.

Ratcliff, himself an "influencer" in social media, with over 5 million followers, mostly drawn from his famous blog Stuck in Customs, said Facebook and Instagram, which the titan of social media owns, " create a false narrative that gives the feeling that the rest of us losers ", so he undertook to expose it, along with the fake @Genttravel account, hoping that changes would begin to be made.

After showing how easy it is to buy followers, likes and comments from sites, Ratcliff hopes that Facebook will eventually see the light and put its affairs in order.

"Otherwise, we are sitting on top of this fake economy in which you can not believe everything you see, and people feel that they are doing nothing," he says.

Instagram explains that services to increase the popularity of an account via "likes, comments and non-genuine subscribers" are not allowed "and that" we are developing a technology that allows us to delete this activity from Instagram ".

But there is clearly an online craft industry allowing to buy fake subscribers and other, businesses such as Buzzoid ($ 39.99 for 5,000 subscribers – "We will give you the likes and subscribers you deserve and help you develop your social presence! ") or Buzzdayz ($ 55 for 15,000 subscribers)

But do not try this at home, kids! Areej Younes, writer of Medium, points out that in the long run, fake followers will not really contribute to channel growth.

"You only buy fake ones like it.There are no organic or real followers behind these accounts.It's just a number.The use of this tactic will ultimately keep you in the trap of buying j & rsquo; love for every content you post will obviously keep the image of popularity on your posts.

But clearly, many people do it and get out of it. Is your life as happy and beautiful as your friends on Instagram?

Looking at Roy Orbison's hologram behind a video screen (Photo: Jefferson Graham)

In other new techniques this week

Samsung: It can be said that the most innovative technology product of the year is the Samsung Fold, a new $ 1,980 phone that turns into a tablet for the largest smartphone screen ever seen to date. There is only one small problem. The phone is fragile and has already been broken by critics from CNBC and The Verge. It's less than three years after a scandal involving the Galaxy Note 7, recalled three times, and possibly stopped, and its batteries exploding.

Compose: Amazon and Google ended their cold war this week. YouTube will soon be available again on the Amazon Fire TV Stick fire and on Amazon branded Fire TV Edition TVs, while Amazon Prime video will be available on the Google Chromecast broadcast dongle and Android TVs. Moreover, in the middle of a dispute, Apple and chip maker Qualcomm have solved their problems. Now, Qualcomm has agreed to make very powerful chips for the next Apple iPhones. Samsung and LG have already announced that they would use Qualcomm chips in their next respective phones, the Galaxy S10 5G and the V50 ThinQ 5G. In response to Apple news, its competitor Intel has announced that it would abandon the 5G modems market.

More with Amazon and Google. The companies that make the popular speakers Echo and Google Home have announced free music offers for their customers. Homeowners can now access free, ad-supported music, and Google Home fans can get ad-free music from YouTube Music. The Google agreement goes a step further, in that the songs are available for all Google brand speakers, including the JBL, Sony and Harman brands. Songs are not available on demand with Echo or Home, but you can listen to playlists and / or stations based on a request.

We had a interview with a ghost This week, it looks more like a holographic encounter with a laser-projected video of the late rocker Roy Orbison in a studio in Los Angeles. The occasion was to connect the autumn tour with the holograms of Orbison and the late Buddy Holly on the stage with a rock band. Odd? For sure. Check out this excerpt of a jam session with the hologram.

This week's Talking Tech podcasts

Facebook and death

Verification of Samsung Fold

Zynga turns to Snapchat and GOT

Sarah Silbert of Points Guy discusses credit card transactions

My interview with a hologram

Trey Ratcliff on the Instagram game

So much for this week's Talking Tech summary. Listen to the Talking Tech daily podcast and follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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