On January 30, 2019, the Office of the New York Attorney General (“NY AG”) and the Office of the Florida Attorney General (“Florida AG”) announced settlements with Devumi LLC and its offshoot companies (“Devumi”), which sold fake social media engagement, such as followers, likes and views, on various social media platforms. According to the NY AG, such social media engagement is fake in that “it purports to reflect the activity and authentic favor of actual people on the platform, when in fact the activity was not generated by actual people and/or does not reflect genuine interest.”

These settlements are the first in the United States to find that selling fake social media engagement constitutes illegal deception and that using stolen social media identities to engage in online activity is illegal. The NY AG emphasized that the New York settlement sends a “clear message that anyone profiting off of deception and impersonation is breaking the law and will be held accountable.”