100 X Followers for 255 Yen… The Reality Behind Social Media Popularity and Public Opinion Manipulation Created by “Smartphone Farms” with Over 100,000 Devices

100 additional X followers for 255 yen; 1,000 TikTok “likes” for 55 yen

“Alright, let’s get started.”

A YouTube live stream conducted from a brand-new account with zero subscribers. It was a completely empty stream—nothing but the words “Test @FRIDAY” floating on a pitch-black screen—yet the number of viewers soared rapidly.In less than 20 minutes, it surpassed 25,000 viewers and jumped to the top of the concurrent viewer rankings in Japan for that time slot.

“This is the true power of the ‘Smartphone Farm,’”

So says Mr. A, who began attending a science-focused university this spring. Though he looks like any ordinary college student, he is reportedly the on-site manager of “Smartphone Farm.”

Social media is inseparable from modern life. While it’s overflowing with all sorts of information of dubious authenticity, many people likely check metrics like the number of “Likes” or views as one factor in judging credibility.

However, these operators claim they can “manipulate” those numbers. Mr. A explains how the “farm” works.

“We remove the circuit boards from a massive number of smartphones, connect them to power supplies and cooling units, and manage them so they remain in continuous operation. Then, simply by playing videos or having them view posts according to client orders, we can artificially inflate the numbers.

The name ‘smartphone farm’ likely comes from the fact that managing such a vast number of smartphones looks just like managing crops. In the industry, managing three-digit numbers of smartphones is considered mid-sized, but we operate over 100,000 units. There are only four such massive farms in Japan.”

It seems there are, so to speak, “four major farms” in Japan. Mr. A explains that the entire process, from receiving orders to carrying out the work, is automated.

“The unit prices are low. For example, to increase the number of followers for ‘X’ by 100, it starts at 255 yen; for 1,000 ‘likes’ on TikTok, it starts at 55 yen; and for 1,000 views on YouTube, it starts at 175 yen.Even so, because we handle such massive volumes, our annual sales in recent years have been around 4.5 billion yen.

Incidentally, these unit prices are our ‘upstream prices’ as farm operators. On general retail sites that come up in online searches, these services are sold at prices ranging from tens to thousands of times higher. Using a smartphone farm, you can boost any social media metric. We’ve entered an era where public opinion is shaped by these farms.”

Why are they “selling” at such a low unit price? Is it really possible to generate annual sales of 4.5 billion yen just from that?—The questions are endless, but Mr. A also explains how the farm is operated.

Do politicians use them during elections, too?

To manage a massive fleet of 100,000 smartphones, Mr. A’s “farms” are spread across four locations in Ibaraki Prefecture. Most are converted from ordinary single-family homes, making them completely unrecognizable to the casual observer. Mr. A explains, “Officially, we say we’re running a streaming service. The farms aren’t illegal, but it’s a hassle if the police show up.”

So, what kind of people use these smartphone farms?

“There were people who used them to pad their impressions (number of views), and others who commissioned comments to attack their opponents. Come to think of it, I heard a story that during the House of Representatives election this past February, a campaign team for a certain candidate asked us, ‘Please ‘like’ our posts!’”

When it comes to online manipulation by politicians, the case involving Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (65) is still fresh in people’s minds. It was reported that during this year’s House of Representatives election and last year’s LDP presidential election, a team responsible for creating and spreading “negative campaign videos” targeting opposing candidates carried out online manipulation using a large number of smartphones. When asked if he had ever received a request from Takaichi’s campaign,he replied, “I don’t know about that time. Since political cases carry the risk of criminal penalties, we’ve now set our algorithms to filter them out.”

At the end of the interview, I asked why he was revealing such intimate details so candidly. Mr. A said, “Because I want to clean up the industry,” but his true intentions remained unclear.

At the same time, Mr. A mentioned, “We also sell the system for these smartphone farms.” While the price depends on the scale, it is said to be in the hundreds of millions of yen. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that this might actually be his “main business.”

Behind social media and the “public opinion” it shapes, all manner of unsavory characters are lurking.

From the September 25, 2026 issue of *FRIDAY*