Surge in Low-Cost Fake Online Accounts Fuels Misinformation Crisis

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have unveiled the first global system to track the costs of creating fake online accounts, a critical tool in the fight against digital misinformation and fraud campaigns worldwide.

The Cambridge Online Trust and Safety Index (COTSI) monitors real-time pricing for verifying inauthentic accounts across more than 500 platforms including major social networks like TikTok and Instagram, as well as services like Amazon, Spotify, and Uber.

These fake accounts form the backbone of “bot armies” designed to mimic real users and manipulate public discourse online. According to the researchers, these coordinated networks can flood conversations, promote scams or products, and push political messaging at scale.

“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, a senior author of the study and computational social psychologist at Cambridge. “This can be done by simulating grassroots support online, or generating controversy to harvest clicks and game the algorithms.”

The research comes at a pivotal moment for online information integrity. Major social platforms have reduced content moderation resources while simultaneously implementing user payment systems that potentially incentivize artificial engagement. Just this week, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Russian and Chinese firms identified as “malign actors” in information warfare operations.

The study reveals that sophisticated vendors operate vast banks of thousands of SIM cards and millions of ready-made verifications, allowing them to generate fake accounts for mere pennies. According to a year’s worth of supplier data, verification costs vary significantly by country, with the cheapest services found in the United Kingdom, United States, and Russia, while countries with stricter SIM card regulations like Japan and Australia show markedly higher prices.

The data shows SMS verification for a single fake account costs an average of $0.08 in Russia, $0.10 in the UK, and $0.26 in the US, compared to a substantial $4.93 in Japan where regulatory frameworks make the process more difficult.

Platforms with the lowest global prices for fake account creation include Meta’s services, Shopify, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Amazon. Many sellers offer comprehensive packages including customer support, bulk discounts, and supplementary services to artificially inflate engagement metrics like likes, comments, and follower counts.

The threat has intensified with advances in artificial intelligence, researchers warn. “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 explained.

The study also uncovered evidence of political influence operations potentially driving market dynamics. Prices for fake accounts on messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp showed notable increases in countries approaching national elections, rising by 12% and 15% respectively in the 30 days before polls opened. This pattern emerges because these messaging apps display phone numbers, requiring operators to register accounts locally, which increases demand.

Interestingly, similar trends were not observed on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, where accounts created inexpensively in one country can target audiences globally without revealing their origin.

The Cambridge team noted strong connections to Russian and Chinese payment systems throughout the ecosystem, with linguistic analysis of many supplier websites suggesting Russian authorship.

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

The researchers, whose team includes experts in misinformation and cryptocurrency, believe stronger regulation of SIM cards and implementation of identity verification would increase costs for creating fake accounts, potentially disrupting the market’s economics. They suggest COTSI can serve as a tool for measuring the effectiveness of such policy interventions globally.

The UK became Europe’s first country to outlaw SIM farms earlier this year, and the Cambridge researchers plan to use their index to evaluate this policy’s impact on the fake account market.

“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, co-author and professor of social psychology at Cambridge. “Understanding the cost of online manipulation is the first step to dismantling the business model behind misinformation.”