Scammers Are Creating Fake Students on Harvard.edu and Using Them to Shill Brands
"According to his bio on Harvard.edu, Mikao John was an erudite scholar: a medical student at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology who'd studied statistics and biochemistry at Yale and published research in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine," reports Futurism: John was also a prolific author of blog posts on Harvard's site... But despite that veneer of academic authenticity, his posts didn't sound much like medical research. nstead, John's recent works carried titles like "KeefX.co: The Cannabis Fintech Company that Provides $1M in Funding a Month," which took the form of an extremely flattering article about a startup that provides financial services to weed businesses, and "Idahome Solar Makes Switching to Solar Power in Idaho a No-Brainer," which praised the "client-first mentality" and "incredible financing program" of a seemingly random solar panel company in Idaho. As it turns out, there is no Harvard student by the name of Mikao John. Instead, a scammer invented that persona — and, alarmingly, managed to obtain the credentials to insert him into Harvard's web system — in order to sell SEO-friendly backlinks, and the prestige of being hyped up by someone at one of the world's most distinguished universities, to marketing firms with publicity-hungry clients. The practice of scammers cooking up fake Harvard students to shill brands on the university's site appears to be widespread. In response to questions from Futurism, Harvard removed the Mikao John profile as well as about two dozen similar accounts being used for the same purpose... Swathes of Harvard.edu have become a spammer free-for-all where fake students and other accounts hawk an endless parade of dubious stuff: online casinos, synthetic urine, real estate in Florida, CBD, [42 more examples deleted] and many more incongruous yet trashy brands and services... Overall, it felt as though if a reporter hadn't been sending numerous emails, the fake students probably would have been allowed to continue posting indefinitely. Harvard eventually told the reporter that the scammers were signing up for their online classes, then using the email address they received to infiltrate the university's blogging platforms (writing fake posts about everything from bitcoin to concealed carry holsters and even bouncy castles.) Ironically, Harvard's official motto (first adopted in 1643) is "Veritas" — the Latin word for truth.
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