What's stopping people from faking submissions?
Short answer: a layered system, and the fact that fakes rarely win.
Automated checks
- Duplicate / reverse-image matching on images and video frames catches re-uploads and mildly-edited steals.
- Metadata analysis flags files that don't match claimed origin.
- AI-detection looks for generated content in contests that require original human work.
- Account pattern analysis — brand-new accounts with no history entering every contest simultaneously, accounts all posting from the same IP range, etc.
None of these are perfect on their own. Combined, they catch most of the obvious attempts.
Human review
Submissions flagged by the automated layer go to a human reviewer before they're eligible to win. For high-prize contests, a second reviewer checks winners specifically.
Organizers can dispute
If you're running a contest and spot a fake submission the system missed, you can flag it. Flagged submissions are reviewed before winners are confirmed. Abuse of the flag system (flagging everyone you don't like) hurts your organizer rating.
Participants get hurt worse than organizers
The people with the most to lose from fakes are other honest participants, and DareBay knows this. Cheaters:
- Get their submissions removed.
- Lose access to the prize even if they "won".
- Get a hit to their participant rating — and that rating is visible on their profile to every future organizer.
- Repeat offenders lose account access.
A real participant's rating is their best asset. Someone who's grinding up their rating with honest work won't throw it away for one contest.
You can't catch everything
We're honest about this: motivated, careful cheaters can sometimes get through. That's why we have a dispute process (see the manifesto's "Our promise" section) and why some outcomes get re-reviewed after the fact.
→ See also: how winners are chosen, illegal content.