Guys, I hate to break it to ya, but Instagram has a huge porn problem – and I don’t mean an addiction to Pornhub.com.
Over the past six months or so, I’ve written some of the most heavy articles of my career, and look, naturally us journos will have a little peek at the comment sections of our posts to see what kind of convo we’re generating.
Lately, without fail, yarns about anything from the Black Lives Matter protests to a celebrity contracting coronavirus will cop a bunch of comments just like the following:
Literally, it will be a report on the most serious topic, and the comments section will be flooded with wildly inappropriate shit from accounts that don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re fake.
Like no, Nina, I don’t want to watch you masturbate. I want to read discussions about the current political climate, FFS.
These porn bots have actually been plaguing Instagram for years, but they’re becoming more jarring (and frankly, disturbing) ‘cos they’re not cherry-picking certain posts to fill with eggplant and squirting emojis, it’ll be on extremely serious topics and I’m sick of it.
So where the fuck are these bots coming from and why have they invaded Instagram? Well, when I click through the link on one of the pages (I have v. strong virus detection, DW), I’m led to a run-of-the-mill “dating, hook up, and swingers” site that wants you to pay for “UNLIMITED ACCESS” to women.
When you follow the trail further, you get to SmoochyCash.com, an affiliate marketing site that allows anyone to sign up and share WellHello links in exchange for money.
FYI: Affiliate marketing is a business model that rewards people for bringing customers to a company or visitors to a website.
Like ~influencers~ earn cash when people click their affiliate link to a product, porn bots make money from getting you onto porn sites – even if you don’t spend any dosh.
Yeah yeah yeah, I get all that, and I have no idea how to stop it, but all I’m saying is, can these money-hungry c*nts target their comments to, say, influencer throwback beach selfies and NOT my article about why television writers need to consider the Black Lives Matter movement into future storylines?
I know this will have absolutely no impact on the bots, but I just needed somewhere to vent, so thanks for coming on this journey with me.
