SZA Claims She Was Targeted By “Tech Engagement Farms”

Some of the negativity circulating around SZA online may be more calculated than random trolling, according to information she says she received after looking into the activity herself. The singer told followers on Instagram that she hired someone to investigate what was happening around her name and was told “tech engagement farms” were using negative posts about her to help smaller pages grow.

“I hired someone that told me I was targeted by tech engagement farms to build smaller pages using my name for negativity and engagement bait," she wrote. "If you see anything negative don't engage lol they gotta start paying me. Hell they should be paying YOU.”

She did not identify the pages allegedly involved or provide additional evidence showing who may be behind the activity. Instead, her post focused on telling fans not to reward negative content with engagement, arguing that reactions only help the pages benefiting from her name.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 2Cool2Blog (@2cool2bl0g)

The message fits with SZA’s growing frustration with how outrage is manufactured online. In December 2025, she accused the White House of “rage baiting artists for free promo” after her music was used in an immigration enforcement post, according to TheGrio. Her criticism then was aimed at a very different source, but the complaint was similar. Attention generated through anger still counts as attention.

SZA has also been unusually willing to meet online commentary head-on rather than leaving every conversation to fan pages or her team. That makes her name especially valuable in an engagement economy where a response from the artist can turn an otherwise forgettable post into a much larger moment. Her latest message asks fans to break that cycle by refusing to interact at all. If the goal of the alleged pages is to build audiences through negative SZA content, she would rather nobody help them do it for free.