Fake IMDB credits

[croes]

Reminds of this "Man fools security to backstage at a Peking Duk gig by changing the band's Wikipedia page to describe himself as a family member"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3345074/Man-fools-s...

[andrewfromx]

Changing a wikipedia article to get past Security is literally an episode of Mr. Robot Season 1. https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/62560-mr-robot

[walrus01]

Now imagine where he could get to if he had a high-vis vest and a clipboard

[treeman79]

Wikipedia just had a huge controversy where definition of recession was changed to matched political narrative.

https://youtu.be/gegkEkFIsWs

[Tao3300]

The band handled it exactly the way you'd want them to.

[chrisseaton]

Is ‘to backstage’ a verb?

[bragr]

There's a reason wikipedia classifies IMDB as an unreliable source. Apparently Michael Madsen has a real problem with people adding him to films in production in an effort to get financing.

https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Michael-Madsen-Hates-IMD...

[starik36]

I was an extra in an indie film because a friend asked me to help out. Lo and behold - I now have an IMDB page - presumably the film producer added me.

Fast forward a year and now there are 5 films credited to my name. I had nothing to do with 4 of them. I am unclear how and why this is happening.

[leephillips]

That’s hilarious. Wikipedia classifies IMDB as unreliable because...anyone can edit its pages.

[throwoutway]

Ironically, Wikipedia is an unreliable source. I’ve given up making fixes

[radiojasper]

"Besides being an Actor, he tried his luck in acting and singing."

I thought I was cross-eyed for a second, but it really says exactly that. [0]

[0] reupload as substack URLS are daunting to say the least: https://jasper.monster/sharex/Ygg0w8VuhP.jpg

[Havoc]

Guessing it’s a common Indian speech pattern that gets lost in translation cause I’ve heard similar at the office

[PebblesRox]

I’m guessing it’s a failure of the author to proofread. The guy’s issuewire bio has a similar sentence without the repetition: “Besides being a successful YouTuber, he tried his luck in singing and music.” Seems like whoever wrote these blurbs is working from a template.

[mkl95]

IMDB created a Top Rated Indian Movies section to mitigate spam [1]. However some obscure Indian movies make it every now and then into the regular Top 250 list.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/india/top-rated-indian-movies/

[7speter]

I remember imdb being meticulous in its record keeping ~15 years ago/before it got bought by Amazon (though its quality held up for at least a few years after). I remember looking up details for kinda obscure movies and talent, and my mind being blown when info for either was listed. Now, it takes years to see the filmography of a given actor from a streaming show.

[MichaelCollins]

> ~15 years ago/before it got bought by Amazon

They were bought by Amazon 24 years ago now, in 1998.

[politelemon]

Side note, I'd really appreciate if you could close off your opening (. I don't know where to stop reading with a lower volume in my head.

[jwilk]

> the edits are not reviewed effectively either

But when I tried to fix typo in the cast list of a movie, my submission was rejected:

> Your contribution has been declined. We have been unable to verify your contribution. Unfortunately we were unable to accept your submission as we were unable to verify the information provided.

[wyrm]

Well, that wasn't very effective, was it?

[dav_Oz]

I remember the imdb-ratings on movies from India were also absurdly high, I brushed it off as a cultural thing back then; but unfortunately [0] the rigging seems to be norm on imdb across the board (not limited to India).

[0]https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/bollywood/story/the-kashmir...

[humaniania]

After Amazon bought IMDB it became more about advertising for movies and less about being a database. Same thing as when Warner Bros and Universal Studios (via its parent Comcast) bought RottenTomatoes. Now everything brags about it's RT rating when it's coming from 2 movie studios...

[rurban]

Indian fake ratings are a big thing, but from my own experience collecting good ratings, I can attest that keeping fakes out if the system is a big effort, and it cannot be done manually. I implemented a complicated but fair statistical system to keep fake ratings out from my site. But I'm only doing the top 3 film festivals, not all the crap. The manual blacklist is still huge.

In the west the biggest offender is A24 btw.

And to be fair to the Indian movies: The top Indian movies are usually better than the best western movies. But we didn't have top Indian movies for almost over a decade now.

[butterNaN]

A bit of a tangent but the unemployment crisis in India has reached unprecedented levels. Expect a lot more of "hustle" coming from young enterprising Indians who have no other avenues to earn.

[chevman]

Happens everyday all day in BigCo land!

You think those execs really did all those things they said they did?

[tyingq]

I wonder how many people have successfully bootstrapped acting gigs this way. Perhaps not the guy in the example, as his various poorly written bios expose him. But surely there are people that are better at this game.

[benknight87]

Online fraud is rampant across major platforms. Companies lack the resources and immediate financial incentives to combat it. Google Maps is another good example. I live in Vietnam and businesses stealing another business' unclaimed listings is common practice, or claiming the listing for a public landmark and using it to advertise their tour company for example. Then there's fake reviews... These platforms simply can't combat fraud at scale, undermining trust.

[exodust]

Google Maps is a mess of business icons and junk which I notice is now mandated on Street View - icons can't be hidden anymore without resorting to custom scripts like ad blockers.

Google Search tries too hard to present "facts". Take this top result snippet which messes up the difference between speedometer and odometer:

https://www.google.com/search?q=speedometer+or+odometer

Google is using and presenting data from the top website in an attempt to "know" the functional difference between speedometer and odometer. Google pretends to be smart. I'm not surprised people are finding it easy to manipulate "knowledge" panels.

[miyuru]

The fake musician thing mentioned in the article is also used to get verified accounts in Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as well.

[Cupertino95014]

Wait. You're saying I can make myself an actor in a major motion picture? Hold my beer.

[technothrasher]

I looked my own name up on IMDB and found that I had starred in a soft-core gay porn movie. I was intrigued, but somewhat disappointed that I didn't remember any of it. Also disappointed that it seems to have been the start and end of my illustrious film career.

[hackernewds]

There could be others with the same name as you?

[xaxaxb]

I stopped IMDBing long ago and switched to Metacritic, which is what I currently trust for anything entertainment-related.

[personjerry]

Anyone know how to replicate this to get a knowledge panel for startup-building clout? Asking for a friend

[Dma54rhs]

Pay workers of tech magazines to write about the company just like these randons guys. Start with the cheapest bribes and move up to techcrunch etc - there's little morality in that sector so you're not the first to come to with it.

[james-redwood]

This is actually where I first saw this phenomenon. These men in the article weren't the first to try this concept.

[bredren]

> In a world where your online clout is everything…

It’s a long arc, but I think we are bending away from this.

It’s harder than ever to convincingly be a competitive content creator.

Going from largely Insta photos -> tiktok forced non-linear video editing / performance on fast trend cycles.

[squeebie23]

I find it interesting that nowhere in the article did the author write the name of the actor / musician he's referring to, it's only highlighted in pictures. Maybe trying not to add to this guy's SEO?

[entropie]

Maybe part of a scam, like Geo Slam who pretends to be a top notch Hollywood producer which lots of connections to get money (and vacations, and...)

Strg+f, german investigative journalists, made a nice story about that case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KV8i2Q1TXU (german, should have english subtiltes)

[ck2]

BTW since India makes a great many of medications and supplements for the USA and the world, and those factories are never inspected or products tested, do you think this "cheating" / "hacking" attitude doesn't spill over into each and every industry?

Webpage is one thing, how about things you consume?