By using fictional accounts the website Gästlistan.com infiltrates your friend click on Facebook. The objective is to spread hidden advertisement for nations and clubs. This trick is a new type of illegal advertisement and hundreds of students might be affected. “This is a well known move in the business”, says the founder Nikola Mirkovic.
Do you have Facebook-friends that you don’t know in reality? In that case, you might be a target for a new type of advertisement concerning students.
”Who is Sandra Lindström, by the way?”
That was the question that triggered a heated discussion in one of the groups on the Human Resources program a few months into to the semester. On Facebook, Sandra Lindström was friends with about ten of them. But when people started asking about her, nobody knew who she was.
“I had accepted her friend request during the initiation period. Since she knew several people in our group, I thought everything was alright”, one of them says.
Sandra Lindström’s Facebook-page shows a young, blond woman. The page tells you that she was born in 1991, comes from Gothenburg, and studies at Lund University. You also find out that she is friends with the Lund student Anna Isaksson, who is of the same age. Both of them eagerly post links to different studenlife events through the website Gästlistan.com, combined with personal messages such as “Moneybrother on Friday! Fuckin’ awesome”
When the HR-students looked closer on the girls’ Facebook-pages, they discovered a network consisting of at least four different Facebook-profiles, which were spreading links to the website Gästlistan.com and also linking to each others’ updates. The students started suspecting that the accounts were fake.
“It felt unpleasant. Somebody has taken pictures on young girls to use them in advertisement, do the girls know about this? And what does this person know about us?”, says the HR-student.
Gästlistan.com is an advertisement website for club life adressing “young people on their way out to the nightlife” and focuses on Uppsala, Borås and Lund. For one thing, the website spreads information about the nations’ concerts and clubs. They also claim to collaborate with Göteborg’s nation.
Nikola Mirkovic, who is running the website, first says that the girls are Lund University students whose task is to promote the website.
“In return they get VIP-tickets to parties.”
But neither Sandra Lindström or Anna Isaksson exist in real life. Their names and dates of birth do neither exist in the Lund University register or Skatteverket (Swedish Tax Agency).
When Lundagård points this out, Nikola Mirkovic admits that he himself invented the identities of Sandra Lindström and Anna Isaksson, and that he created their accounts assisted by a friend of his.
“I suppose I have to confess that that’s how it went down. We didn’t know anybody in Lund so we came up with the idea of creating fictional people, initially to spread the message. I must say, we got pretty good results.”
Nikola Mirkovic says that he also used these accounts for advertising other products as well, one of those things is high heeled shoes.
How much do you estimate to have earned from that?
“Hard to tell. On average, five percent of people’s friends click on every post, and they probably have around five or six hundred friends.
Who are the girls on the pictures?
“They’re friends of mine in America, who let me use the pictures. They agreed to it.”
How many fake accounts are we talking about here?
“We have two in Lund and one in Gothenburg.”
Sandra Lindström, Anna Isaksson and – who is the third one?
“I don’t remember. Does it matter? I’m deleting them now, right?”
What about the other two girls who liked their posts and share the same advertisement?
“Honestly, I only know of these three. A friend of mine might have opened the other accounts. I’ll check with him. If so, we’ll delete them as well.”
It is prohibited to use somebody else’s identity on Facebook but the website is having problems stopping people who do. Last summer, Facebook estimated that 83 million people violated the rules.
According to Cecilia Norlander, lawyer at Konsumentverket (Swedish Consumer Agency), the phenomenon of fake Facebook-profiles as a means of promotion is up to this point unknown to them. One thing is certain, it is illegal.
“It violates the provisions of the Swedish Marketing Practices Act on at least two paragraphs. Firstly, it must be clear that the commercial distributed is marked advertisement, and it’s not. Secondly, the company poses as a consumer, which also is prohibited,” she says.
Nikola Mirkovic says that he will now close the fake Facebook-accounts.
What do you think of the fact that you have been deceiving the students?
“I can understand if that’s how they feel, but at the same time I don’t think it’s that bad since the commercial revolves around something good. And this is not something unusual. Many people do this today.”
Who?
“I can’t give you any names, but it’s a well known move in the business.”
Have you experienced something similar to this? Contact Lundagård on 0761-33 40 20 or lundagard@lundagard.se!
Translation: Maximilian Aleman Tennell
