New Research Reveals Global Market for Fake Online Accounts

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have unveiled a first-of-its-kind global tracking system that maps the costs of creating fake online accounts across different countries, exposing a thriving underground economy that fuels misinformation and digital fraud.

The Cambridge Online Trust and Safety Index (COTSI), launched Thursday, monitors real-time prices for verifying inauthentic accounts across more than 500 platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Amazon, Spotify, and Uber. The comprehensive study comes at a critical juncture as social media platforms scale back content moderation while simultaneously incentivizing user engagement through payment programs.

“We find a thriving underground market through which inauthentic content, artificial popularity, and political influence campaigns are readily and openly for sale,” said Jon Roozenbeek, senior author and computational social psychologist at the University of Cambridge. “This can be done by simulating grassroots support online, or generating controversy to harvest clicks and game the algorithms.”

The year-long research reveals dramatic price variations across global markets. SMS verification for a fake account costs as little as $0.08 in Russia and $0.10 in the United Kingdom, compared to $4.93 in Japan, where stricter SIM card regulations significantly increase costs. Meta, Shopify, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Amazon emerged as platforms with the lowest global prices for creating fake accounts.

These findings gain particular significance as the United Kingdom recently sanctioned Russian and Chinese firms suspected of being “malign actors” in information warfare, directly targeting the sources of coordinated inauthentic behavior online.

The sophisticated marketplace offers more than just account access. Researchers discovered vendors operating vast networks of thousands of SIM cards and millions of pre-made verifications, creating accounts for mere pennies. Many sellers provide comprehensive services including customer support, bulk discounts, and packages to artificially inflate likes, comments, and followers.

The research team also identified strong connections to Russian and Chinese payment systems, with linguistic evidence suggesting many supplier websites originate from Russian authors. This aligns with growing international concerns about state-sponsored disinformation campaigns.

Generative artificial intelligence has exacerbated these challenges, according to the researchers. “Generative AI means that bots can now adapt messages to appear more human and even tailor them to relate to other accounts. Bot armies are getting more persuasive and harder to spot,” Roozenbeek noted.

Perhaps most concerning is the study’s finding that political influence operations may be driving market demand. Prices for fake accounts on messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp increased significantly—12 percent and 15 percent respectively—in countries approaching national elections. These platforms display phone numbers, requiring operators to register accounts locally, which drives up costs.

“Misinformation is subject to disagreement across the political spectrum. Whatever the nature of inauthentic online activity, much of it is funneled through this manipulation market, so we can simply follow the money,” explained Anton Dek, research associate at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

The research team, comprising misinformation and cryptocurrency experts, suggests that stricter SIM card regulations and enforced ID verification could substantially increase the cost of creating fake accounts, potentially disrupting the market’s economic foundation. They point to the UK’s recent ban on SIM farms—the first European country to implement such legislation—as a step in the right direction, with COTSI now positioned to measure the policy’s effectiveness.

“The COTSI index shines a light on the shadow economy of online manipulation by turning a hidden market into measurable data,” said Sander van der Linden, study co-author and professor of social psychology. “Understanding the cost of online manipulation is the first step to dismantling the business model behind misinformation.”

As governments worldwide grapple with the spread of disinformation and online fraud, this new tracking system provides unprecedented visibility into the economic mechanisms fueling digital manipulation, potentially arming regulators with the data needed to craft more effective countermeasures.