With US elections on the near horizon and recent political turmoil and unrest in Europe over mass immigration, the internet, and in particular social media, have become stage settings for those wishing to cause political and social turmoil across society.
The world doesn’t feel as safe or stable as it has in recent years, what with the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia and the ongoing middle eastern conflict between Israel, Gaza, Iran and Lebanon.
For whatever reason, there are those individuals who seem to wish to stoke the fires of conflict by making inflammatory statements online. Worse still, even governmental agencies from rogue states with an interest in bringing Europe and the West to ongoing internal conflict seem to be fanning the flames of strife over the world wide web.
For example, there can be little dispute now about Russian interference affecting the UK electorate’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) in their 2016 referendum. It has been established that many social media accounts spreading fake news, AI-created images and deep fake videos were in fact bots programmed by Russian hackers. Those bots would bombard Facebook and Twitter (Now called X) with postings about the costs and damage to UK society caused by European immigration and the necessity for Britain to be bound by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Influencers should be extra careful.
Another way that hackers and online baddies can spread disinformation and hatred is by hacking influencer accounts on social media platforms such as TikTok; the influencer then appears to have made statements supporting one political group or action, and the consequences can be widespread.
If the erudite scholar and highly respected TV personality Stephen Fry, for example, was hacked and a deepfake video released of him appearing to support the Russian action in Ukraine, millions of people would most likely believe the fake to be real, simply because it’s ‘out there’. The problem nowadays is that many people still believe what they see online without questioning its validity.
Clearly this sort of hacking would finish the career of some influencers sponsored by ethical brands, so it’s more important than ever that prominent public figures or even those politically active in election campaigns should take steps to prevent their Instagram accounts from being hacked, as getting their Instagram account hacked can have serious consequences.
So what’s the best way for influencers, their sponsors and marketing professionals to stop this from happening? For residents of North America, a simple and highly effective strategy is to use a USA VPN (virtual private network) – although the strategy is pretty much identical wherever you live in the world.
Use a VPN
A VPN is simply a piece of software that sits on any internet connected device, but it changes the browser settings so that before connecting to the requested online service (maybe Facebook or a streaming service like Netflix) the device connects initially to an intermediary server belonging to the VPN provider.
The advantages of this are several. Firstly, VPN servers tend to be encrypted, so legal website analytics software and even illegal hackers can’t identify the internet protocol (IP) address of the VPN user, nor can they identify the device in use, the person’s account or their physical location. If hackers don’t know who you are nor where you are, they tend to move on to try and hack someone else.
A bonus – save money when making online purchases.
Not only can using a VPN prevent an influencer’s device being hacked and their socials passwords being compromised, the use of a VPN also prevents large e-commerce websites from applying the morally questionable strategy of ‘dynamic pricing’.
Dynamic pricing (DP) comes in several forms. There is the understandable ‘supply / demand’ form of DP, whereby effectively ‘perishable’ goods and services like fresh food in restaurants or airplane seats have to be sold by a given date or they no longer exist. So the prices for these products fluctuate depending on demand and how many products are left before their expiry date – that’s fair enough.
But imagine a system whereby you were offered prices not based on the availability of a product or service, but on the basis of how much you could afford to pay.
If an old hobo walked into a corner deli, dressed in rags and asked for a pastrami sandwich on rye, he would almost certainly be charged the ‘normal’ price for that product, say $4. But if a sharp-looking guy walked in two minutes later sporting a Rolex watch and a Hugo Boss suit, is it fair for the deli proprietor to charge the yuppie, say, $10 for an identical sandwich, purely on the basis that he probably won’t argue over the price?
This is what DP websites do, especially on travel and hotel accommodation sales. The AI (artificial intelligence) behind the website’s server effectively ‘decides’ what you can afford based on data points such as your location, the device you’re using, your purchase history with the site and other factors.
So if you log onto a hotel booking site using a brand-new Mac computer, and you’re based in downtown Manhattan, the chances are that the hotel room you’re seeking will be offered at a much higher price than if you were logging on to the web from a 10 year old Android phone in Memphis.
A VPN however cloaks your location and the device you’re using, so those DP algorithms are torpedoed right there.
Avoid data throttling.
Anyone who has a significant online presence is bound to be using a lot of data via their home or office internet connection; not least influencers and work-from-home (WFH) creatives.
Indeed, Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate for this coming November’s presidential election in the USA, has turned to influencer marketing to go after younger people’s votes. It’s big business being in this form of marketing, so uploading high-definition videos, streaming and downloading competitor’s content and all manner of online activities is going to guzzle those gigabytes.
Especially when using 4G or 5G data connections through the cell phone network, many ISPs and cellular companies impose ‘fair usage’ policies whereby customers only receive a certain amount of data in any given month. If you exceed that, the ISP can ‘throttle’ the connection, slowing it to a crawl so you either have to upgrade to a more expensive contract or cease your online activities.
But a VPN user cloaks their identity and location even from their ISP, so, in effect, if that provider doesn’t know who is using the data or where they’re located, it can’t slow down the connection. Every time you log on to a VPN your IP address will be different from the previous session, so data-hungry users can’t be identified specifically.
Access geo-restricted content
Even if you’re a regular citizen instead of an influencer or celeb, if you’re on vacation and you want to catch up on, say, Kevin Costner’s ‘Yellowstone’ via Paramount, if you’re in a hotel in Europe, for copyright reasons the platform won’t allow you to login to your US-based account. Similarly for UK residents, the same applies to the BBC’s flagship iPlayer service.
But if you log onto the internet using a VPN, within a couple of taps or clicks of a mouse, you can appear to be located in the host country of the desired service’s provider. All of a sudden, from your Paris hotel room, you can be binging Yellowstone back in the USA to your heart’s content.
Security, convenience and cost savings
In summary, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an established media figure, a part-time local influencer, a political campaigner or just an average Joe Citizen – using a VPN can keep your online activities secure while saving money and avoiding inconvenient online obstacles into the bargain.
Most VPNs are free for their basic service, so there’s no point in not using one right away. Installation can often be performed with one click, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer decision. Stay safe out there folks!
