Title:

Wanting sex, receiving adverts

OR

Promising sex, delivering adverts

Caption: This story is the result of a deep dive into the rabbit hole that is Pakistani social media.
Sex sells on Pakistani social media, even without the involvement of a single sex worker.

Intro:

How are an entrepreneur from Sargodha, developers from India, sexual frustration, advertising
revenue and an impersonation scam related to each other? Read on to find out.

By Umer Zaib Khan

Text:

This story is the result of a deep dive into the rabbit hole of Pakistani social media. Team Soch
investigated an intersection between thousands of people looking for “timepass” online through Commented [Office1]: You are sure there are
thousands?
the consumption of live stream content, and individuals that exploit these technologically
illiterate consumers for advertisement revenue. Commented [MOU2R1]: Each live had over a thousand
shares and 5k plus comments so yes.

According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, there are 65 million people with an
active internet connection in Pakistan. While many of these internet users are interested in
consumer entertainment, news, friendship, sex, and the like, others have devised clever ways to
use social media to earn money.
Commented [Office3]: What year are these stats from?
Commented [UZ4R3]: A press release from 2019.
It actually needs slight revision. There are 65 million
active internet connections, not people with internet
connections.

The particular method at hand is called live streaming, which refers to sharing an online video https://pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/ptas-
feed in real time on social media, allowing people to interact through comments and calls. With response-to-hootsuites-digital-2019-pakistan-report-
210619
the increasing availability of internet connections, the one-to-many equation of conventional
media consumption has been turned on its head. In this way, hundreds of Facebook and
Youtube pages stream thousands of hours of live stream content every day. This happens all
over the world. But when my producer asked me to look into Desi Voice, a now-defunct
Facebook page which appeared to be involved in the procurement of sex for money, it appeared
to be something out of the ordinary.

Desi Voice shares live stream content from other similar Facebook pages, some of which are:
“Noor Ali”, “Rima Khan” or “Hina Malik”. These pages each have roughly 150,000 folowers.
Apart from the live stream videos, these page also share photos of female celebrities and regular Commented [Office5]: Such as?
Hania Amir, Mahira Khan
women, asking people to inbox the page. Digging deeper, it was discovered that sex sells on
Pakistani social media, even without the involvement of a single sex worker. All you need is the
insinuation that an individual could be entertained by an attractive host. On these popular
Facebook pages, which have upto 150,000 followers, people tune in to live streams starring a
varied cast of attractive young hosts innocently taking calls from their viewers, engaging in
benign chit-chat with college students, middle-aged Pakistani men, or expatriate workers in the
Middle East, among others.

On the surface, the Desi Voice looks low-maintenance. But once you begin following, you realize
they are sharing live content on a breakneck speed: two to three streams online at the same time,
each lasting upwards of four to five hours. It seems to be active to be true, which is exactly the
case. The live streams are anything but live.

Every stream features a host taking “live” calls from viewers. The description of the stream
offers instructions on how the viewers can get on the stream themselves: They have to share the
stream on as many groups as possible, which the streamer would theoretically be actually aware
of thanks to Facebook’s “sharer” badge for live stream viewers; and they have to download
apparently raunchy looking and presumably phone-sex related applications from the Google Play
Store. Example: Sana (entertainment), Fabiha Khan (which has Mahira’s picture on the app dp), Commented [Office6]: Please tell names of these apps.
As examples.
Mahel Malik dancer etc

The applications misdirect consumers to believe that when they download the app, they’ll be able
to privately speak to the host featured in the application’s title photo. On every live stream, the
comments section is littered with hundreds of men dropping cell phone numbers with the
acknowledgement that they have fulfilled both requirements. Desi Voice responds to every single
comment with a private Facebook message, encouraging them to download the app. Commented [Office7]: Slightly confused. I thought the
men were only dropping comments AFTER they
downloaded the app and shared the page? The page
then tells them to download apps again?

So when you comment on the post, you get a private

msg to download the app, it is just making sure they do
download the app. It’s repetitive advertisement.

Looping men through live streams

One of the first live streams I tuned into on Desi Voice was an example of the same, but the
host’s usual “follow me on” timestamps were populated with references to the now-defunct Commented [Office8]: What is this?
social media applications Musica.ly. That struck me as odd. Commented [UZ9R8]: Every few minutes live streamers
usually say “follow me on xyz website” so it’s like a time
stamp
On closer examination, it became clear that the “live streams” Desi Voice shares a few times a
day are mostly looped snippets of live stream [add] content originally recorded for a different Commented [Office10]: ??
platform. Sometimes the content is years old. Commented [UZ11R10]: Accidental

In this particular case, the video loops back after 15 minutes, with the same caller making an
appearance 16 times in a four-hour session. Live streams are deleted as soon as they end, so that
the same recordings can be used again. Against the prudent advice of the producer #TeamSoch
downloaded one of these applications to investigate them: “Sana (Entertainment)”.

This app was installed over 10,000 times. This was not the only app by the developer, rather
Google play store has 17 similar apps all by the same developer, SultanLovers. There were five
more comparable apps, developed by MonsterMind. While most of the apps looked like an
opportunity for men to talk to women and see their live streams, a couple were about fashion,
cricket, jokes, etc.

The content of the applications simultaneously elicited a sigh of relief while also being a let-
down. Their only functionality is to play Youtube playlists in the app window, with a skin
designed to differentiate one app from another. The application’s singular purpose in the entire
operation is generating advertising revenue.

There are hundreds of thousands of people that come across Facebook live streams that
promote these applications, and then there are tens of thousands of downloads noted under the
applications on the Google Play Store, hence it is important to consider how much money the
operators of the application are making by defrauding these (thirsty) consumers.

The programmers behind the curtain

The apps have an About section along with the contact

information of its developers. This led #TeamSoch to four
representatives of the Indian software development
company ViaviWeb. However, these reps clarified that their
only involvement with the app is to develop an un-skinned
version of the Youtube Playlist app. Further digging
revealed an email address that led #TeamSoch to the
mastermind, dubbed as MonsterMindApps, behind the
entire operation, a man from Sargodha.

Over the telephone, Sargodha-based Altaf Hamid* explains

his operation while constantly reaffirming that he is only a
“small fish” in an industry that is defrauding millions of
unsuspecting social media users by dangling the prospect of
speaking to attractive ladies in front of them. “A friend of mine, who lives in the USA does the
same work. He has about 15-20 Facebook pages and gets a lot of traffic,” says Hamid. He
himself operates the application creator Monstermind Apps on Google Play Store, which
features exactly the same kind of applications as SultanLovers. “I learnt about the business from
friends,” he says.

Through his training in software development and his ability to crank out identical applications
while maintaining distinction between them through creative skins, he was able to collect a
catalogue of these Youtube playlist applications ranging from the aforementioned phone-sex
scams to benign cricket-related ones. People download the applications and after clicking
through a few videos and in that time having watched a few ads, delete the application. But with
those few ads, the purpose of the app is achieved. That is why there it’s imperative to get as
many people as possible to download the application.

[Voicenote: Logoun ko bewakoof bana kay aur hum unn ko app install karwa letay hein, to jab wo app
install karleta hai to zahir hai chera chahiri karte karte 2-4 ads uskay samnay ajatay hein, aur aik ad bhi click
karle to humara khata pura hojata hai din mein] Commented [Office12]: How will we embed this is the
story? What form is it in?

Hamid is able to earn decent income from this operation. The source code from ViaviWeb costs
him a meagre PKR10,000, but the ad mobs on the applications generate much more revenue. Commented [UZ13R12]: It’s a Whatsapp voicenote, will
download and send
Each application pulls in around PKR1,600 in advertisement revenue on average every day,
operating five applications with two ad mob clients at this point brings home roughly PKR
240,000 per month.
Commented [Office14]: Any more details about this?

One particular admob with two applications, that Hamid knows about, but doesn’t run, allegedly Commented [UZ15R14]: Not really, he refused to give
me that friends contact number. “Hamid” designed the
makes more than PKR274,000 over its lifetime. app for him
[Voicenote: Ye aap dekh lay kay fazool si apps hein ismay humnay youtue videos daali hui hein embed ki hui
hain, aur traffic gain karrahay hein Facebook say] Commented [Office16]: Figure out format

How legal is this?

The operation violates a number of Facebook’s community standards such as violating image
privacy rights and encouraging sexual solicitation. Furthermore, it also disperses spam and
misrepresents its operators’ identity. For these reasons, Desi Voices has been removed off
Facebook, but other similar pages continue to exist. Hamid confirms that pages being taken Commented [Office17]: Examples?
down part of the business for them, and they have figured out a way around it: They simply Commented [UZ18R17]: Correction: Desi voice still
exists, but “noor ali” has been removed. So desi voice
migrate their content to another generic page with Desi followers to continue funnelling viewers is an example of one of the pages that are still up.
to the application.

This scam is part of a larger trend of misleading online content, commonly known as ‘clickbait’
or in legal terms ‘spoofing’. Under Section 26 of the Pakistan Electronic Crime Act (PECA):
“Whoever with dishonest intention establishes a website or sends any information with a
counterfeit source intended to be believed by the recipient or visitor of the website, to be an
authentic source commits spoofing”. This crime is punishable with up to three years in term or
fines worth PKR 500,000. These Facebook pages also violate Facebook’s Community Standards
10, 13, 14, 16 and 17.
There is very little oversight of digital spaces in Pakistan, which can make it an attractive avenue
for fraud. Revenue for such apps is generated by selling user’s personal data,” says Shmyla
Khan, a project manager at Digital Rights Foundations. The small print in the app clearly states
that “Personal Data” would be collected which included "Usage Data", which collects
information about the mobile device, its IP address, operating system, Internet browser being
used and unique device identifiers.

Khan adds that owners of such misleading apps should be held responsible and accountable as
the user is unaware of what is happening with their data, it could be used for purposed far more
nefarious that those in this story. Currently, there are no laws in Pakistan to protect user data but
a draft law has introduced to the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication.
Until then Khan believes that these apps fall under the ‘gray’ area of law and users need to be
mindful of what they are clicking, downloading and sharing online.

A story which began as a suspected phone sex business, where consumers would trade money
for the opportunity to speak privately to attractive, female, live stream hosts on advertised
applications, ended up being an impersonation scam that effectively monetises the sexual desires
of Pakistani men for advertising revenue, on an application designed in India and operated from
Sarghoda. What a time to be alive.

— Additional reporting for this story was conducted by Annam Lodhi.

*Name has been changed to protect identity.