meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
CYBER

The Phone Farmers Who Fake Netflix Ad Views for Cash

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4645 Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2019

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Did you know you could make money watching Netflix trailers on your phone? Did you know that people have earned close to $2,000 a month programming hundreds of phones to watch Netflix trailers, video game trailers, celebrity gossip shows, and sports? 


But the trick is, no one is really watching. 


This is what’s called phone farming. Just imagine rows upon rows of phones, with fans cooling them that simulate the engagement of a real human. On this week’s episode of CYBER, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox dove into this world by making his own mini phone farm, talking to the real farmers who made the cash creating them to give us the inside story on how this bizarre phenomenon actually works.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Tann, it's got the code it's going to launch.

0:11.0

It's a unit system.

0:13.0

I know this.

0:15.0

It's all the files of the whole park.

0:17.0

It tells her everything.

0:19.0

Sir, he's uploading the virus. Eagle won. The package is being delivered.

0:24.6

Did you know you could make money watching Netflix trailers on your phone?

0:29.6

Did you know that people have earned thousands of dollars a month programming hundreds of phones

0:34.6

to watch Netflix trailers, video game trailers, celebrity gossip shows, and sports.

0:40.4

But no one is really watching.

0:43.4

Well, in 2019, this is what's called phone farming.

0:47.5

Just imagine rows and rows of phones clicking and scrolling through social media or other apps

0:52.3

to simulate the engagement of a real human,

0:55.7

all the while making money for their human overlords.

1:00.0

Motherboards Joseph Cox dove into this world by making his own mini phone farm.

1:04.5

He's going to tell us the inside story on how this bizarre phenomenon actually works.

1:09.8

I'm Ben Maku, and this is cyber.

1:14.2

So Joseph, let's talk about this, because it kind of sounds absurd to me.

1:20.3

People are using multiple phones, creating phone farms,

1:24.5

to get paid to watch Netflix trailers, essentially.

1:27.7

Yeah, so you would always see these phone farms in China go viral,

1:32.6

where there's these racks and racks of cheap Android phones and people clicking through them,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from VICE, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of VICE and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.