SINGAPORE: Instagram celebrity Amanda Cerny steps out onto a road in the rain and starts dancing in a clip recorded and uploaded onto media-sharing app Instagram.
“Sunny vibes on a rainy day,” reads its caption. Meanwhile, the video’s geotag – where it was taken – says “Singapore, Singapore”.
But the unfamiliar road markings and right-hand traffic suggest it was captured somewhere else.
“Is that actually at Singapore?” asks one of Cerny’s 10.5 million followers.
Over the past week, global followers of popular overseas-based Instagram stars have been left similarly puzzled.
They noticed thousands of posts tagged as having been taken in Singapore even though the visuals clearly show they were taken overseas.
One Instagram celebrity tagged a picture of himself in Disneyland in the US as “Singapore, Singapore”.
These social-media stars have been exploiting a bug in the media-sharing app.
The geotag has since been removed after it was called out by followers.
Pictures and videos with a location tag set to “Singapore, Singapore” jump more easily to the top of the app’s Explore section, netting them more views, likes and followers.
An Instagram spokesman confirmed the bug, adding that the rankings of posts tagged with “Singapore, Singapore” were impacted. “We’ve now fixed the issue,” he said.
The “Singapore boost”, as netizens have termed it, began a week ago when a few primarily United States-based Internet stars, such as Logan Paul, Dan Bilzerian and Ms Cerny, began tagging their posts with “Singapore, Singapore”. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network
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