HOW CAN I REALIZE FAKE FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS?

As you know, Facebook has approximately 2.50 billion monthly active users in 2020 and it is the most famous social network in the world. But in this number, all are real or? Which one is a fake account?

Let me share one of my experiences on Facebook. Of course, I know most of you face to fake accounts, for example, once I was chatting with a woman for 2 days after that I understood it was a man.

How many accounts are fake on Facebook?

Yet, there is no clear number of fake Facebook accounts who break the rules of Facebook by spammers or scammers impersonating others or somebody who sets up a Facebook profile as a Facebook business page.

“Duplicate and false accounts are very difficult to measure at our scale, may vary significantly from our estimates.”

The Silicon Valley Company

Fake accounts Facebook disclosed in its quarterly reports, Source: Company filings • By The New York Times

This graph shows that Facebook could control fake accounts but from 2017 we see that this number had increased again and Facebook cut its estimate in 2016.

“For names that appear to be fake or other behavior that appears inauthentic, we apply significant judgment in making this determination.”

The company said in securities filings

The maximum number of active fake accounts Facebook (blue) reported each quarter was significantly smaller than the number of fake accounts it said it took down (black). Sources: Facebook, company filings • By the New York Times

The table shows Facebook has taken down more than 2.8 billion fake accounts in the 12 months.

How we can reveal fake accounts on Facebook?

There are some ways to realize which accounts are fake:

• They are cheater: while they introduce as a friend, or even having a romantic relationship, their target is to harm you like your money, goods. Or they want to steal your information and identity from you and create another account with your information.
• Think twice about accepting friend request: if you don’t know someone doesn’t talk to them. For example ask them some questions like: Why they want to be your friend? How did they find you? Who do you know? You can click on their name and find that have you any mutual friends or not.
• Be a little like detectives: check their accounts, check their posts and pictures, etc. You should be clever in this step.
• Read the bio carefully: He/she write real things or there are hard-to-believe statements. For example, he/she has a young profile picture and has written: “ I’m a professor of ….”
• Check the profile picture: some people set pictures of flowers or places or animals and some things like these. Don’t trust them easily.
• Check the picture profiles in their posts: some just have one picture. Real accounts show themselves in different posts by photo or video.

• Google the profile picture: Check the profile picture that is there only one? It is touched up or not? You can do it by Google:
  + Drag the Facebook profile pictures to your desktop

+ Navigate the photo on Google images and drag and drop it

• Search their name online: check they have been tagged? In general, a real person is tagged a part of Facebook. If found 2 accounts like each other, check their age, location or any other information.
• Check their friends: he/ she has local or global friends? Accounts that have local friends are more real. Of course, Facebook always suggests local friends.
• Accounts with ad websites: many Facebook accounts want to reach you to show their website that there are a lot of ads on it. And the owner of these websites wants to make money by viewing.
• Different names in URL: some Facebook account names have a different name on their websites. If they have a website in their Facebook bio, check it that their name is as same as their Facebook name.

• There is no detail in Facebook bio: most fake accounts are lazy and don’t share more information about themselves such as location, age workplace, education, etc. And their bio is empty or has a bit of information.

• Check the last date of post: if someone has a post from 1 year ago or more and have a few posts, he/she wants just to peep on your account.

• Search Facebook account for that same name: Sometimes you search a name on Facebook and appear several accounts with the same picture.

• Check the comments: open one of her/his picture posts, read comments some people comment on a post just by one word such as: beautiful, awesome, hi, handsome, etc. that the owner of the account hasn’t replied to anyone. (You can see this case more in girls accounts)
• Many friends with a few likes: another sings of a fake account is that has many friends but he/she has received a few likes. In this case, check other his/her activities like Check-ins, Music, Films, TV-Programme.

• Pay attention to photos: normal accounts have photos of their events, trips and family members.
• Be careful about declarations of affection and love: when you’ve never met someone who lives far from you and shows his/her love to you or someone who asks you for sexy pictures, be suspicious.
  Ask your own feelings like: Is it accidental? Weird? Horrid?

What should you do if are faced with a fake account on Facebook?

• Report: click on … button and select the Find Support or Report Profile and then select Fake Account.

Of course, sometimes Facebook responds to you with a message that the account doesn’t violate the terms and services of Facebook.

• Block: the best way to clash fake accounts is to block them.

“Our systems look for a number of different signals that indicate if accounts are created in mass from one location. A simple example is blocking certain IP addresses altogether so that they can’t access our systems and thus can’t create accounts.”

https://about.fb.com/news/2019/05/fake-accounts/

• Unfriend: If you are unsure or suspicious about someone on Facebook, cancel your Friend item.

• If you are sure about an account that is fake, inform your friends about him/her that don’t suffer from it

Why there are fake Facebook accounts?

As I said earlier, some people want to thief your identity and information and use them for creating a new account on Facebook or other social media platforms or taking out loans or credit cards.

And some fake Facebook users create an account to make money by buying and selling Facebook fans and likes to their page.

And so; BE CAREFUL!!