Unveiling the Click Hole: A Photographer Goes Undercover in Vietnam's Shadowy Click Farm Empire

 

Have you ever wondered how those websites with millions of views stay afloat? The answer might surprise you (and maybe scare you a little). Join us as we delve into the secretive world of Vietnam's infamous "click farms" through the lens of a daring photographer!

This isn't your average farm tour. We're talking windowless rooms buzzing with activity, rows of computers clicking away like a digital symphony (or maybe a dystopian nightmare). Our intrepid photographer takes you behind the scenes to expose the truth about these shadowy operations.

Jack Latham wasn't on your typical farm tour in Vietnam. Skip the sprawling rice terraces and lush plantations – Latham had a different kind of harvest in mind: clicks.

For a month, the British photographer delved into the secretive world of Hanoi's "click farms." These shadowy businesses aren't growing crops, but artificially inflating online traffic and social media engagement. Their product? Manipulating algorithms and user perception for clients worldwide.

Latham's new book, "Beggar's Honey," offers a rare glimpse inside these workshops. Here, low-paid workers become digital farmers, cultivating likes, comments, and shares for businesses and individuals hungry for online validation.

"Social media feeds on our desire for attention," Latham explains. "We all crave it – it's become a beggar's honey for advertisers and marketers." His phone interview quote gets a fresh twist, emphasizing the connection to the book's title.

This rewrite uses a more attention-grabbing headline and replaces passive voice with active voice for a more engaging read. It also shortens some sentences and utilizes figurative language ("digital farmers," "beggar's honey") to create a more vivid picture.

Jack Latham’s project took him to five click farms in Vietnam. 

Jack Latham/Courtesy Here Press

The rise of social media giants like Facebook and Twitter fueled a new gold rush: the race for online influence. Companies and brands scrambled to build a sparkling digital presence, and in this quest, a shadowy industry emerged – click farms.

The exact origins of these click farms are murky, but by 2007, tech experts were already sounding alarms about "virtual gang masters" running these operations from low-income countries. Fast forward a decade, and click farms exploded across Asia, particularly in countries like India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, where cheap labor and electricity made it a lucrative business.

Regulations, however, haven't kept up. While some countries like China attempted crackdowns (the China Advertising Association banned click farms in 2020), these operations continue to thrive, especially in places where powering hundreds of devices is a breeze.

Click Farm Startups, Minus the Venture Capital

Latham's investigation took him on a tour of five Vietnamese click farms. Hong Kong click farms, he says, got spooked ("got cold feet") and travel restrictions scuttled his plans to explore mainland China.

Hanoi's outskirts revealed a surprising truth: click farms weren't just sprawling operations. Latham found workshops tucked away in houses and hotels. Some resembled traditional call centers, with rows of workers diligently clicking away on hundreds of phones. Others, however, had embraced a more modern approach: "box farming." This click farmer term describes a compact method where several screenless, battery-less phones are wired together and controlled through a single computer interface. Imagine a Silicon Valley startup, minus the venture capital and fueled by clicks instead of code.

Clickworker Chronicles: A Glimpse into the Monotony

Latham's photos offer a glimpse into the lives of click farm workers, albeit with their anonymity preserved. One image portrays a lone figure amidst a sea of electronic devices, his posture hinting at the monotony of the task.

"A single click farmer can control a massive number of phones," Latham explains. "One person's clicks can mimic the activity of ten thousand users. It's a strange paradox – isolated yet crowded."

Latham's observations reveal a division of labor within these click farms. Each worker focuses on a specific platform. One "farmer" might be responsible for bombarding Facebook accounts with comments and posts, while another creates YouTube channels that endlessly play videos on a loop. Interestingly, Latham notes that TikTok has become the platform of choice for many of the click farms he visited.

“They all looked like Silicon Valley startups,” said Latham. “There was a tremendous amount of hardware … whole walls of phones.” 

Jack Latham/Courtesy Here Press 

Clickonomics: Pennies per Click and the Illusion of Engagement

Latham discovered that click farm services were advertised online for a song - less than a penny per click, view, or interaction. Despite the seemingly deceptive nature of their work, the click farmers Latham spoke to viewed it as just another job. "There was an implicit understanding that they were providing a service," Latham explained. "It wasn't presented as something malicious, just a shortcut."

Beyond the Clicks: Deception in Aesthetics

Latham's book, "Beggar's Honey," goes beyond documenting the click farmers themselves. The 134-page collection includes a series of abstract photographs – some alluring, some thought-provoking – that depict videos he encountered on his TikTok feed. These visuals serve as a metaphor, representing the kind of content click farms artificially inflate.

However, the core of his project lies in the hardware that underpins this social media manipulation. Latham's photos often feature tangled webs of wires, phones, and computers – the physical machinery behind the facade of online engagement.

"A lot of my work explores conspiracy theories," Latham admitted. "This project is essentially an attempt to document the machines used to spread disinformation. The most important things are often the ones we can't see directly."

This rewrite condenses the information while maintaining the key points. It injects a bit more intrigue by mentioning Latham's interest in conspiracy theories and emphasizes the contrast between the click farmers' perspective and the larger societal concern.

“Box farms,” a phrase used by the click farmers Latham visited, see several phones wired together and linked to a computer interface. 

Jack Latham/Courtesy Here Press

Click farms around the world are also used to amplify political messages and spread disinformation during elections. In 2016, Cambodia’s then-prime minister Hun Sen was accused of buying Facebook friends and likes, which according to the BBC he denied, while shadowy operations in North Macedonia were found to have spread pro-Donald Trump posts and articles during that year’s US presidential election.

While researching, Latham said he found that algorithms — a topic of his previous book, “Latent Bloom” — often recommended videos that he said got increasingly “extreme” with each click.

“If you only digest a diet of that, it’s a matter of time you become diabetically conspiratorial,” he said. “The spreading of disinformation is the worst thing. It happens in your pocket, not newspapers, and it’s terrifying that it’s tailored to your kind of neurosis.”

Hoping to raise awareness of the phenomenon and its dangers, Latham is planning to exhibit his own home version of a click farm — a small box with several phones attached to a computer interface — at the 2024 Images Vevey Festival in Switzerland. He bought the gadget in Vietnam for the equivalent of about $1,000 and has occasionally experimented with it on his social media accounts.

On Instagram, Latham’s photos usually attract anywhere from a few dozen to couple hundred likes. But when he deployed his personal click farm to announce his latest book, the post generated more than 6,600 likes. The photographer wants people to realize that there’s more to what they see on social media — and that metrics aren’t a measurement of authenticity.

“When people are better equipped with knowledge of how things work, they can make more informed decisions,” he said.