The accounts of students of certain blocked faculties suddenly recorded a huge number of new, phantom followers, so they were suspended. Is this a new type of bot vs student fight?
Something strange is happening on social networks in recent days, they claim students in lockdown different faculties.
Student accounts, they say, magically got tens of thousands of phantom followers, probably with the idea that the administrator would then automatically shut down the profiles. This is what happened to the accounts of certain students in the blockade on Instagram i TikTok. They suspect regime bots.
Students of the Faculty of Agriculture in Belgrade announced that the profiles of SuB, FON and FDU have been closed.
“This is clearly one of the poor attempts to control the population and prevent the spread of free thought that calls for rebellion against the rotten regime,” the students said in a post they shared on social media.
They also say that such a move will not stop them.
“Let’s toast this cup of poison like Socrates and be aware that this is happening because we are on the right path! We will not let this situation hinder us from achieving our goal. One fight, one goal – without division until victory!”, the students wrote.
In the meantime, the account of students in the blockade of Novi Sad also disappeared Faculty of Technical Sciences.
Uncontrolled number of followers
Students Faculty of Dramatic Arts they previously announced on Instagram that their account was experiencing an “uncontrollable increase in the number of followers” and that they therefore suspected that it was an organized attempt at sabotage.
The post states that a rapid increase in followers can raise suspicion on the Instagram platform and lead to the termination of students’ accounts. As they claim, behind it lies the artificial increase in the number of followers by means of bots.
The profile of students in the blockade of FDU currently has almost 280 thousand followers, while the profile Students in the blockade has 610 thousand followers, which is several tens of thousands more than on Friday.
Since the beginning of their struggle and protest, students have been using social networks as the main channels of communication.
Informer’s jubilation
“Informer” immediately began to gloat that “the blockaders suffered a heavy blow from which it will be difficult to recover”.
“Informer”, which has been running a direct campaign against them since the beginning of the student rebellion, states that the shutdown of student accounts was first noticed by businessman Branko Babić, who “immediately shared the information on the X social network”.
“Poor students blocked on TikTok! You know the old Serbian one – don’t turn it off, so as not to be turned off,” said Babić, who, “Informer” reminds us, recently had his profile on Ix closed, which is why he was forced to open a new one.
Štimac also disappeared from Instagram
And former Serbian national basketball player Vladimir Štimac he was also left without Instagram this morning.
Štimac, who was banned from attending public gatherings last week, both registered and unregistered, announced on the X social network that his account had been suspended.
“As part of an apparently new ‘hacker’ agenda of a criminal group from the authorities, my Instagram profile has been shut down. You can try to silence us, but let me tell you right now that you are wasting your time!”, Štimac said on X.
What are the reasons for account suspension on TikTok and Instagram?
A sudden increase in the number of followers can be a reason for the suspension of an Instagram profile.
According to the privacy policy of this social network, if Instagram detects an artificial increase in followers (eg bots or fake followers), the account may be limited, temporarily blocked, or even permanently suspended in severe cases.
A sudden increase in followers in itself is not a problem if it is organic (eg a viral video). The problem is if the algorithm detects that the followers are purchased, fake, added through third-party applications.
And TikTok can block an account even without logins if it detects the use of bots, artificially increasing views and followers, spam comments, mass liking and commenting in a short time.
Source: Vreme
