Brand Deals, Sponsorship & Business
Influencer fraud
Also called: fake followers, engagement fraud, bought views
It runs from a channel that bought subscribers years ago and kept quiet about it, through pods that trade likes, to agencies billing brands for campaign reports built on traffic nobody watched. Because follower counts are cheap to fake, sponsors have moved to the things that are harder to buy: audience geography against the brand market, comment quality, view-to-follower ratios and analytics shared straight from the platform.
For an honest creator this arrives as extra scrutiny. Expect to hand over Studio data during a negotiation, and offer it before anyone asks.