High Frequency Trading Fans

Ticketmaster, a large purveyor of tickets, appear to be attempting to suggest how a genuine fan might be constructed: Tickets: is this the system to finally beat the touts? Having taken the email address, they want other details to check if a purchaser is a Verified Fan via social media.

I do wonder how long it will take for a new set of bots to be created to game the system and using knowledge of future tours and events, to auto-populate the relevant feeds and to tweak these from time to time to appear to be human. Bots will follow the news and image feeds, before reposting. How long before touts become High Frequency Trading Fans?

At the same time, it discriminates against fans who like the music but do not necessarily post at length of their love for x. Those who just get on with enjoying and purchasing the music or artefacts (such as t-shirts).

So to be a Verified Fan, one has to provide and alter a social profile to fit in with a reasoning model of an intermediary. Is a Verified Fan merely a marketing bot, human or machine? Is there an unintended consequence of this (and one challenged by Pearl Jam, I think) that it further distances the fan from the artist. As a wider point, it echoes the way that Facebook / Google are acting, A Creaking Social Media, how this affects the person, and a suggests a discourse driven by promises of Machine Learning.

Jones, R. Tickets: is this the system to finally beat the touts? The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/20/tickets-ticketmaster-facebook-twitter-verified-fan, last accessed by 20th January, 2018

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