Instagram is suing a New Zealand company for selling likes and follows

As the lawsuits and inquiries stack up against Facebook, the beset tech giant is taking some legal action of its own.

Facebook announced Thursday in a blog post that it’s suing a New Zealand company that sells Instagram likes, followers, and views. The lawsuit, against a company colloquially known as a “likes farm,” is part of Facebook’s larger effort to combat what it calls “inauthentic behavior” on its platforms. 

The decision is a show of strength by the company that it is taking the fight against fake activity on the platform — more notoriously associated with the likes of Russian bots — seriously.

Typically, Facebook suspends or bans accounts that it finds to be acting inauthentically, meaning not as a genuine human being, company, or other entity. Instagram’s Terms of Use state that “you can’t impersonate others or provide inaccurate information” about your identity, and that “you can’t do anything unlawful, misleading, or fraudulent or for an illegal or unauthorized purpose.” Its community guidelines also instruct users to “help us stay spam-free by not artificially collecting likes, followers, or shares.”

The lawsuit goes a step further than just banning a likes farm company. Facebook is alleging that the company has violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), “and other California laws,” in its sale of fake likes and follows. It also said that the company continued operating as a likes farm even after Facebook instructed it to cease its activities.

Previously, governments have gone after click farms when they discover their bases. In 2017, the Thai government busted up a click farm using thousands of workers, devices, and SIM cards to generate likes and follows for paying customers.

On Facebook’s end, it has removed thousands of pages in recent years for “inauthentic behavior.” Much of these accounts have been from Russian and other foreign entities using Facebook to politically manipulate users, though it has used “fighting spam” as a less incendiary explanation for these actions. 

Fake accounts are also still a huge problem across Facebook’s platforms. WhatsApp revealed that it bans 2 million fake accounts per month. One recent report found that half of Facebook’s 2 billion plus accounts could be fake; Facebook refutes this report’s findings, but it in 2017 it also acknowledged that 270 million accounts could be duplicates or fakes.

The lawsuit is one way to show that Facebook means business about cleaning up its platform. That’s a much-needed sign of faith, as the company faces lawsuits and fines about account security breaches, data collection, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. 

But don’t worry, all the legal drama hasn’t affected Facebook too badly: news of a $3 – $5 billion fine from the FTC for privacy violations didn’t stop Facebook stock from rising after it posted a positive earnings report for the first quarter of 2019. Facebook scandal, schmacebook schmandal!