Influencers on TikTok and Reddit earn a cut of the counterfeit goods trade by promoting high-quality “replicas” sourced from ecommerce sites in China.

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9858725

A wave of social media influencers are earning money by promoting illegal knockoffs imported from China on Facebook, TikTok, Discord, and Reddit. Pandabuy alone claims to have signed up thousands of content creators to its marketing program last year. They serve as the public face of an elaborate new counterfeiting economy that is proving difficult for tech platforms to combat and makes the dealers of Manhattan’s Canal Street look downright primitive.

It works by connecting Western buyers to Pandabuy and other fast-growing Chinese sites that act as a go-between for shopping marketplaces stuffed with fakes usually sold only inside China. In exchange for promoting the platforms, the influencers earn a cut of each sale.