From the YouTube link:

Guy Gets Inside A Chinese Click Farm And Holy Crap, That's A Lot Of Phones

​Turns out if you want to run a business where you rate a bunch of apps and write fake reviews, you can't just spoof having a bunch of phones — you actually need the phones. And so that's what we have here: a room full of phones relentlessly rating apps and writing BS reviews because everything in life (and particularly on the internet) is a lie.

A Russian man visited a Chinese click farm. They make fake ratings for mobile apps. He said they have 10,000 more phones.

A Russian Went Inside A Chinese Click-Farm: This Is What He Found

On the day when Snapchat erased billions of market cap from investors (and founders) accounts - as the MAUs-means-money model seems to break - we thought it worthwhile taking another glimpse into the hush-hush world of 'click-farms' and the fakeness of the latest social network fads.

So, if they're not human, where do all those "likes," "retweets," and "followers" lighting up your social media accounts from?

Thanks to this Russian gentleman - who visited a Chinese click farm, where they make fake ratings for mobile apps and other things like this - we now know...

He said they have 10,000 more phones just like these.

As we concluded previously, the bottom line is simple: "The illusion of a massive following is often just that," said Tony Harris, who does social media marketing for major Hollywood movie firms, said he would love to be able to give his clients massive numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but buying them from random strangers is not very effective or ethical. And once the prevailing users of social networks grasp that one of the main driving features of the current social networking fad du jour is nothing but a big cash scam operating out of a basement in the far east, expect both Facebook and shortly thereafter, Twitter, to go the way of 6 Degrees, Friendster and MySpace, only this time the bagholders will be the public. Because "it is never different this time." The only certain thing: someone will promptly step in to replace any social network that quietly fades into the sunset.

Inside China's phoney 'click farm': Tiny office uses 10,000 handsets to send fake ratings and 'likes' for boosting clients' online popularity.

Pretty much everything @ChaosEngine said, and as pointed out in the Humans Need Not Apply video. There are far more factors going into this than the economists are willing to look at.

Shelf checkouts might result in slightly higher theft rates, and each person might be at the register than they would be with a properly trained cashier, but you now have one minimum wage employee watching 6 or 12 registers, rather than 6 or 12 people... that is a huge savings. That's 5 to 11 jobs lost, and at the low end, where people can least afford to lose job opportunities. It's just a matter of time until McDonald's, Wendy's and the like all add app-based ordering, or ordering at a kiosk, and that saves a couple employees there (Chick-fil-a already has that in their app, order, notify when you are there, they process the order)... and it wouldn't be too difficult to automate the McDonald's cooking line either... the burgers aren't flipped, the grill cooks both sides at the same time, drop them in place, grill down, cook, up, then put them in the stream tray, easy for a cheap bot to do. Portion control would be far easier with a bot too... there are huge incentives for them to move to automate...

The only real incentive not to automate as fully as everyone can is the fact it would cause a huge disruption to the economy if a Universal Basic Income isn't in place. I'd expect the biggest push for a UBI to eventually come from the various industries that want to automate, who'd gladly pay an automation tax to help pay the UBI in order to greatly increase their bottom lines, because we are very close to where a UBI, even based on an automation tax, is still cheaper than employing people.

TBH this looks fake and sensationalist. Two days later it showed up in their feed!? It only takes one search for a cat on the internet for it to affect EVERYTHING everywhere.

Is that model strong enough to run apps in the background and actively listening?

I know only SIRI on iPhone 7 is capable of actively listening and that is a much newer model than what was shown here.

Shenanigans!

My wife and I tried talking about road flares around her phone, our need for more road flares, and questions about where we might find road flares....nothing, but I don't think she had the Facebook app open.

The 'you agreed to it' argument always makes me think of the human cent-I-pad episode of South park. Why can't they make it READ!?

Slashdot had a post about an upcoming (about 1 year out) phone that can run pretty standard Linux distros. I took interest because I'm very annoyed about how UNconfigurable android is.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S2, very old by now, but hardware wise it still works fine. Software wise, it is shit. Android apps are massively bloated compared to when the phone was new, so the "system" partition of the phone is too small to install anything other than like 1-2 apps. From what I can tell, rooting might not help because there are still standard partitioning requirements? I dunno. Anyway, it is a big mess compared to a desktop, where I can partition things any way I want (which works great if you know what you are doing).

Anyway, I don't want to shill for Purism, the company that will be making the phone in the Slashdot article (for one thing, the phone is still a year or so away from final production), but they seem to be doing things right. They DO have some laptops on the market now, which apparently include a relevant feature mentioned in the write-up about their upcoming phone: hardware kill switches for the microphone, camera, and WiFi/Bluetooth.

If you read the ToS (hah! as if) for things like Facebook's app or the phones / OS themselves, you might see that you are "agreeing" to this kind of data collectionspying. If that sets the bar for "good" behavior, imagine what the bad guys (NSA, other agencies, state actors, unscrupulous advertisers, malware producers, etc.) can and will do. That's why any software solution is dubious. That's why electrical tape over your webcam is better than assuming that the record light is trustworthy. That's why a hardware kill switch is a good feature if you're concerned about this (like me).

Here's links to:
an article about the hardware kill switches in Purism's laptops, and
an article about their upcoming phone the Librem 5

I don't own any of their hardware. I don't like paid shills. That being said, I'm interested in what they are doing.

It's right in the Terms of Service that you agree to Instant Messenger listening to audio and possibly the camera.

They don't hide it - You agree to let them when you use the app.

There's YouTube and Facebook making it easy to add captions, there's the Apple Clips app and there are "social media video text packs" to use in editing software..
nooooooo..

Subtle subtitling is fine though.

*dead -- "'Building the App...' This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Apple, Inc.. "

21. if you're a teleworker and I'm trying to help you over the phone don't give me vague descriptions like "I can't get to my stuff. I clicked on the thing and I can't get in now." I'm not in the room looking over your shoulder for the past 5 minutes, you need to describe the steps you took to get to where you are now. And don't give me this exasperated tone when I ask you to do something the Help Desk already asked you to do, like reboot your computer. You got a cab waiting?

22. Don't present a problem like "My FAX123 program won't connect" as if was working yesterday and stopped connecting today. When more likely you have been told many times your supervisor needs to request an account for you and you haven't bothered to start the process. And you think somehow I have the magic touch and can circumvent that whole process on the spot. And even if I could do it you would appreciate it for all of 3 seconds, then come to expect it every time. And so would your colleagues sitting within earshot.

23. Don't ask me to work on something without telling me another tech is already working on it and you just haven't heard back from them in a timely manner and thought you would start over with me.

24. Not everyone in IT knows each other and can do each others' jobs and are cross-trained on account creation, purchasing, application support, etc. So the guy at the home office in Virginia hasn't created your account after a week, you want me to drive there and stand over him? There are MBA's who get paid buckets to manage this mess, you want bottom-rung techs to somehow make it all better?

25. Make sure to follow the last instructions I gave you with troubleshooting an issue, like try it on a spare computer, or reboot, or try printing from a different app, etc. Because when you don't, and a week later when I get a high priority email from your manager saying "why is nobody helping them with this issue?" I will provide a record of our last contact where the ball was in your court.

26. You wonder why it's hard to get a hold me by IM, email or voice mail now? You no doubt wasted my time with one of the previous entries above, or sounded annoyed and impatient that I can't do everyone's job or escalate your issue instantly.

27. If you see me in the building don't ask me IT questions any more, I have moved on to SQL development.

It would be interesting if puddles continues the show as an actual contestant, but then at the same time not surprising? Yes he has his youtube following, and he has his own performances, but he doesn't have any contracts, no endorsements, he isn't exactly making mad bucks. He may not even have an agent. Around 2010 he was the lead singer in a band called kingsized which seemed to exclusively be an entertainment crew that does covers of older songs. For now it seems the band is defunct.

My guess is during the app process, established musicians can skip the first round (musicless singing) and go right to the public performance round. And puddles is doing this so he CAN get more exposure and help nail a music contract. Saddly I prefer puddle's covers over any original content. Some of us have songs that they really like and would prefer just to hear different versions of it.

how did this thread steer into climate change waters?
heh...god i love this site,and i love all you fuckers as well!

i don't really understand the rehashing of the election,trump is president.it is a done deal.

which is probably why i am struggling with the hillary diehards.politics is not a binary equation,so stop acting like it IS,and for the love of god stop with the condescension directed at people who did not vote YOUR way.ya'all are acting like we are your wayward dog who just took a giant dump on your carpet.

just LOOK at what you have done! LOOK at it! bad dog..baaaad dog.

@Stormsinger and @MilkmanDan were kind enough to share who they voted for,but they should not be put in a position to defend their vote.their vote,their choice and their right.

you may disagree,and that is fine,but to place all the blame on them,and their "like-minded compatriots" is arrogant,presumptuous and condescending.the reason hillary lost is not simply due to a few small holdouts.there are a myriad of reasons,and in my opinion,hillary should take most of the blame.

and what is this purity test @bareboards2 ?
do you mean a person standing by their principles?
remaining steadfast in their moral values?
showing us all that they would rather lose,than give up one ounce of integrity?

are you seriously criticizing people for holding to their own standards of morality and decency?

politics is not binary,there a many mitigating factors and political affilliation is only one aspect.

i have seen friends who voted for trump,and were extremely vocal about their support in the run up to election day,only to become eerily silent the further we got into trumps presidency.many of these people had voted for obama..TWICE..they wanted change.were desperate for change,and now they are finding out,that change may not be what they were expecting.

because the trump presidency is going to one helluva horror show,but there are also positives to consider.it is not a total loss.

i have the seen the very same people who have ridiculed and berated fundamentalist christians for being ideologically rigid,and philosophically immovable.turn around and express the exact same rigidity,and binary thought processes when it comes to their girl hillary clinton.

i was talking the other day with a man i highly respect and admire,who flippantly and casually called me a racist.
my crime?
i had the audacity to criticize obama.
which he doubled down and accused me of being sexist for not supporting hillary,and being critical of her as well.

how is this NOT ideological rigidity?
that to critically examine two prominent public figures automatically equates to:racism and sexism.

this is the metric that i see so many hillary supporters use when dealing with someone that they may disagree.this is a cheap,ill thought and ultimately WEAK counter to valid criticisms.

at what point do hillary supporters stop labeling other people the most vile of terms,simply because they did not step into line with THEIR thinking,and begin to examine the very REAL problems that both the hillary campaign,and the DNC,created for themselves?

or is everybody simply a racist and sexist?
that's it..no discussion.

this is akin to the fundamentalist christian labeling anybody who disagrees with their religion,or has brought up solid criticisms,as being an agent of satan.

" i do not like what you are saying about hillary,so therefore you must be a sexist".

the easiest,and most human,thing we do when faced with information and/or criticism that is in direct opposition to our long held beliefs.is to demonize the person making those claims,and therefore silence any further disruption to our own subjective belief system.

so when i talk about "insulated bubbles",and "echo chambers".that right there is what i am referring to,and it is dangerous.

i refuse to judge anybody on how they voted.they had their reasons,and i may even disagree with those reasons,but they have a right to their vote and who am i to judge them?

rehashing the election,or assigning blame based on ideological differences,accomplishes nothing.the REAL work starts now.trump is in office,and he is gearing up to be an unmitigated disaster.

so get involved.head to your next town hall meeting and speak your piece.start to connect with the political movements in your area and start to put pressure on your local representative.

i think we can all agree that trump is awful on so many levels,but to witness the american people become so politically engaged,so politically active,more active than they have been in decades.it really is inspiring,and all this is due to trump.

if hillary had won,would we see the same kind of newly energized,and politically active public?

i don't think so.

so let us stop with the rehashing.
stop with the blaming.
and get off our asses,step outside our own little,insulated echo chamber and start to engage.

don't know how to step outside your own bubble?
there is an app for that:
https://videosift.com/video/it-is-time-to-pop-your-social-media-echo-chamber-bubble

*oh,and even though i may have alluded to who i voted for.let me state clearly that i voted for hillary.i stick by my dislike of the "lesser of two evils" but come on...trump in the white house?

yeeesh....

17 yt views on this barely a commercial for a marijuana search app from a new member....pretty clearly spam
*ban

Oh! regarding the visuals, that's the game Audiosurf 2: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235800/ - it can make a game track for any audio file. For my video it's got a WipEout hover car in it because of a mod I saw in the Steam Workshop.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'horror, app, filter, asian' to 'horror, app, filter, asian, snow app, video messaging' - edited by Eklek