TikTok

Intelligence

“Crying girls will make you rich”: How marketers trick users with mass-produced "organic" content

Feb 10, 2026

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24 min read

“Crying girls will make you rich”: How marketers trick users with mass-produced "organic" content

Indicator analyzed UGC campaigns that generated over 2 billion TikTok views and found rampant violations of disclosure rules.

Craig Silverman

Intelligence

Feb 4, 2026

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10 min read

How much does a TikTok account cost?

In one prolific WhatsApp group, anywhere between 95¢ and $235

Alexios Mantzarlis

Content moderation

‘Digital desecrations’: when deepfakes are used to mock tragic deaths and what platforms should do about it

Jan 14, 2026

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13 min read

‘Digital desecrations’: when deepfakes are used to mock tragic deaths and what platforms should do about it

Synthetic videos of Renée Good are the latest form of technology-facilitated dehumanization

Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

Scam ads are flooding social media. These former Meta staffers have a plan

Nov 6, 2025

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10 min read

Scam ads are flooding social media. These former Meta staffers have a plan

Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to add transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem.

Craig Silverman

TikTok

Oct 30, 2025

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8 min read

TikTok sympathy scams use racial slurs and insults to sell products

TikTok removed close to 200 accounts after Indicator reached out

Craig Silverman

Tech platforms promised to label AI content. They're not delivering.

Oct 23, 2025

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22 min read

Tech platforms promised to label AI content. They're not delivering.

An Indicator audit of hundreds of synthetic images and videos reveals that platforms frequently fail to label AI content

Alexios Mantzarlis, +1

Reporting

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions

Oct 15, 2025

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8 min read

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions

Shallow impersonations of Telemundo, CNN, Fox News and other media got more than 200 million views posting fake ICE arrests and bombastic AI slop about geopolitics

Alexios Mantzarlis

+11

Oct 2, 2025

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15 min read

The Indicator Guide to AI labels

We’ve collected in one place how and when major platforms label AI content

Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

TikTok content farms pivot to Charlie Kirk hoaxes

Sep 15, 2025

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2 min read

TikTok content farms pivot to Charlie Kirk hoaxes

AI tributes and conspiracy theories about Kirk’s assassination got 32 million views

Alexios Mantzarlis

Fraud

TikTok’s rewards program has incentivized a thriving marketplace for US accounts and tax IDs

Aug 19, 2025

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2 min read

TikTok’s rewards program has incentivized a thriving marketplace for US accounts and tax IDs

Brazil’s ‘TikTok Dark’ targets the Global North with geoshifted clickbait accounts

Alexios Mantzarlis

AI slop

Dozens of TikTok accounts use AI avatars of real journalists to spread fake news

Aug 13, 2025

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2 min read

Dozens of TikTok accounts use AI avatars of real journalists to spread fake news

The platform’s Spanish-language misinformation problem led me to a Brazilian marketplace for monetized TikTok accounts

Alexios Mantzarlis

Fact-checking

I reviewed 100 of TikTok’s “Footnotes” so you don’t have to

Aug 6, 2025

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3 min read

I reviewed 100 of TikTok’s “Footnotes” so you don’t have to

Most of them were useless

Alexios Mantzarlis

Cash App

Aug 4, 2025

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2 min read

How bookmarklets can reveal hidden online profile info and speed up OSINT investigations

A guide to using the free bookmarklets offered by My OSINT Training

Craig Silverman

AI slop

Briefing: TikTok crowdsources moderation and tools for searching YouTube and Google

Aug 1, 2025

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9 min read

Briefing: TikTok crowdsources moderation and tools for searching YouTube and Google

Plus: humans suck at spotting AI-generated images

Craig Silverman, +1

AI slop

Jul 16, 2025

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3 min read

A tentative taxonomy of AI slop

Slop is everywhere, but not all of it is the same

Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

Jul 7, 2025

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1 min read

TikTok has a celebrity giveaway scams problem

An organized network of accounts is using TikTok to get tens of thousands of leads for an advance fee scam

Alexios Mantzarlis

AI nudifiers

More people saw these AI-generated ED "remedies" than read The New York Times

Mar 19, 2025

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9 min read

More people saw these AI-generated ED "remedies" than read The New York Times

AI videos flog bogus erectile dysfunction cures to millions on TikTok; deepfake detectors fail latest test; and Meta ran 660 more ads for AI nudifiers.

Alexios Mantzarlis

Reporting

TikTok creators masquerade as Spanish-language media to spread ID misinformation

Mar 5, 2025

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12 min read

TikTok creators masquerade as Spanish-language media to spread ID misinformation

Fake Telemundo and Univision scaremonger on TikTok. Plus: Kendall Jenner is the top of an elaborate diet pill scam

Alexios Mantzarlis

AI slop

Musk & Trump AI motivational slopaganda got 700 million TikTok views

Feb 12, 2025

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14 min read

Musk & Trump AI motivational slopaganda got 700 million TikTok views

Deepfake Trump and Musk motivational clips reach millions on TikTok; Gemini helped me create a pump and dump campaign; and the BBC finds serious problems with AI chatbot summaries of its articles.

Alexios Mantzarlis