Category: Misinformation (Page 1 of 2)

I am frequently asked on Facebook, “How can you tell?“, when I call out a bogus poster. And there’s no short answer. There are many, many different tells. I’ll try to compile them all here, as a “Guide to Spotting Fake Facebook Profiles.”

Major Giveaways

Does their Facebook URL match their Display Name? A lot of sock puppet accounts are set up with the user’s true name, and they later change the Display Name to something American-sounding. But they forget to go back and change the end of their Facebook URL!

They “Like” their own posts and photos. I’m not 100% sure why they do this. Maybe they hope it boosts their credibility? But regular folks on Facebook usually do not Like their own stuff.

If the profile shows where the person works, be leery of generic employment words. If you see “Works at Clinic Office” or “Self Employed”, that’s a red flag. It’s more common for even a self-employed person to give a specific name for their company!

Does the profile say that it is “locked”? That’s a tell-tale sign that the account was created in another country. Facebook does not allow “locked profiles” in the USA. So, if a Facebook user is claiming to be from somewhere in the 50 states, but their profile shows that it is locked, we have found a lie!

Also, I often peruse the different people on a suspicious account’s Friend List. Or I consider the other people that are Liking their photos and posts. If a Facebook account claims to be from Wisconsin, but most of their Friends hail from Pakistan, that gives me pause, leads me to dig further…

More Advanced Techniques

Sometimes, a fake Facebook profile is really buttoned up. They’ve hidden their Friends List and all other personal information. Their photos are unremarkable. But click through each part of their profile, to see if anything is shown. Even if they’ve just left one review with their account, it could be a clue:

Looking over that “Vents Cleaning” page, I get the impression that it’s just another scam page for a service referral scheme. These fake accounts often comment and place reviews on each others pages, again, to boost their legitimacy and credibility.

Many bogus Facebook profiles still post a lot of normal looking things on their feeds, like inspirational quotes and cat pictures. It helps them fit in and look normal. But if you scroll through an account and see a lot of Shared posts, where the content is missing, that’s another red flag. That’s a sign that they’ve been promoting a lot of content that Facebook has later nixed, due to it violating their TOS.

Lastly, you should know that the Facebook Search field is your friend. When you see a suspicious name or post, copy that name and/or the first sentence or two of what they typed. Paste it into the search field and see what posts turn up. If you’ve found a scammer, then their name or post is going to show in many other places on Facebook.

Reporting Fake Profiles

Now that you’re feeling more capable of spotting fake Facebook profiles, you should be ready to report any you encounter.

• Click on the account’s name to visit their profile page.
• Below the masthead photo, click on the three-dots button to the right.
• Click Report Profile
• Click Something about this profile
• Click Scam, fraud or impersonation
• Click Impersonation
• Click Fake profile
• Click Submit
• Optional: Click Next and Done

For some profiles (labeled Digital Creators), the steps are a little different:

• Click on the account’s name to visit their profile page.
• Below the masthead photo, click on the three-dots button to the right.
• Click Report Profile
• Click Fake Profile
• Click They’re not a real person
• Click Submit
• Optional: Click Next and Done

After you report a profile, you’ll get a boilerplate message like this:

And later on, you might receive another message like this:

And I can wrap up this post with surprisingly good news. Facebook is now acting on some of these types of reports. I don’t know what or when they changed, but today, I am noticing that many of the accounts I report are being removed and deleted, often within an hour!

I need to explain to you about the Facebook Highlight Tag. It’s being used right now in a viral post, and you don’t need to be a part of it.

Numerous posts right now are urging people to use the @Highlight tag in the comments or on their own posts, to find out who is watching their Facebook profile. But this is not true.

For anyone who follows these instructions, they will invoke the @Highlight tag, and that simply sends a notification to some or all of your FB friends. The notification pops up on each of their computers/devices, and leads them to wherever you placed that tag.

It’s a needless annoyance and accomplishes nothing. You should only use the Facebook Highlight Tag on something important, something you think all of your Facebook friends should be drawn to see and read. They don’t need to see your comment on someone else’s silly post. If you see this sort of thing on Facebook, just ignore it.

If you see this stuff on Facebook, don’t pay it any mind. And don’t copy and paste it to your feed or anywhere else. It’s just junk, it’s Facebook copypasta, and you don’t need to be part of this paperless chain letter.

You can read more about this rubbish on Snopes. This one has been making the rounds for several years…

Have you seen something else on Facebook, where it asks/urges/demands that you copy and paste it into a new post? Don’t do it. The push for you to copy and paste on Facebook should be a red flag that something is not right.

If you choose to copy and paste something, that could be different. Perhaps you want to spread some info, but make some changes first. Maybe you want to remove a name for privacy’s sake, or edit the grammar and spelling to clean it up a bit. That’s legitimate, and you decided to do it.

But when another poster is pushing people to copy and paste, there are different reasons for that, and they are not good.

• Facebook intends for people to spread posts using the Share function. This creates a trail, so that you can see where a post came from, leading from one Share to another. This also means that if the original Shared post is removed for any reason, the entire Share-hierarchy disappears.
  But with copypasta, every post is independent. If the original is removed, no other posts are affected. This means that a misinformation copypasta is going to be far more difficult to eradicate or correct. And it may also lead to misinformation growth, as the post may be changed and added onto with each successive copy.
• Copypasta defeats privacy boundaries on Facebook. A post in a Facebook group cannot be shared beyond that group. Another post that was set to “Friends Only” cannot be seen by the Public, even if Shared. But copying and pasting defeats all of that, because the new post is, again, independent.
• The originator may never be found. Facebook and other people can track a Shared post back many levels, and find the source. But after someone starts a copypasta chain letter, they may decide to delete their post that started it all, and exit stage right. Maybe they want to avoid the consequences of their actions? Like Facebook Jail?

In short: Don’t copy and paste on Facebook, unless you decide that it is prudent. Using the Share function is more sensible. But even that doesn’t prevent misinformation or harm. Think twice and check facts before passing anything on.

Don’t post “Facebook Privacy Notices”, as shown below. These things are like chain letters, in that they waste your time and spread misinformation. Unfortunately, these things have been passed around for over a decade and never seem to die:

If you see anything like this on social media, don’t re-post it or Share it. It is a hoax and a lie. It accomplishes nothing.

Your Privacy Concerns are Justified

I understand if you have privacy concerns over Meta & Facebook’s treatment of your information. Mr. Zuckerberg doesn’t have a great track record of protecting and respecting our user data. But this kind of post does nothing to protect you or change how Facebook treats you.

Please read up about this on Snopes or other websites. When you first signed up for a free Facebook account, you agreed to a lengthy contract and massive set of policies. You agreed to so many many things, including:

Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as service providers that support our service or other Meta Products you use. This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems.

Facebook Terms of Service

I understand completely if you weren’t aware of any of this. No one ever reads those Terms of Service when signing up on websites. But it doesn’t change the fact that you agreed to a binding legal contract. No one has ever changed a legal agreement by posting a paragraph of text onto social media.

Do I Have Any Control?

If you really want control over what Facebook does with your data, your options are few and simple enough:

• Don’t post it in the first place.
• Delete your info, posts or pictures from Facebook.
• Delete your whole Facebook account!

I understand that those may not be the most helpful options, and for that, I can only apologize and sympathize. Remember: If you’re using something for free, you are probably not the customer, you are the product!