Facebook Fraud – False Likes, False Followers

In the past few weeks, Facebook’s inbuilt security infrastructure has exponentially greatened; the company has been making a conscious effort to get rid of fake ‘likes’ that aren’t genuine – likes that are not from real people, but that are instead ‘virtual thumbs up’ from computerised accounts.

The Facebook security team have recently stated on their blog that “They have recently increased their automated efforts to remove Likes on pages that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook terms. These newly improved automated efforts will remove those Likes gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users or purchased bulk Likes.” 

Since early in Facebook’s development, the website has allowed its users to show their appreciation towards certain products, services or organisations though its ‘liking’ system. A high number of likes draws attention to specific areas. Because of the international footprint that Facebook holds, obtaining likes can cause businesses to gain new customers, and worldwide attention which would not have been possible before the expansion of social networking technologies.

False users, however, are not beneficial to a business’s growth. As stated by Facebook’s team, ‘a Like that doesn’t come from someone truly interested in connecting with a page benefits no one’; if the user is not real and active, organisations are unable to take advantage of the social networking website’s potential. 

These false views and likes can be purchased online for a minimal fee on a number of different websites, such as Fiverr. Although the views to a website will increase substantially, they are of no benefit to the user; the viewers are not active members of the social network, and will not aid in business growth. Many corporate businesses use services such as these so that their company is perceived to be of grander scale and more successful than they actually are. On websites such as Twitter, businesses can purchase inactive followers to trick and manipulate their audiences.

The recent developments made by Facebook are set to iron out these issues. Cohen stated that, ‘This improvement will allow pages to produce ever more relevant and interesting content, and brands will see an increase in the true engagement around their content.’  The organisation suspects that less than one per cent of the fan counts on any given page will be cut down on their crack down of suspicious and fraudulent likes.

Tiro Security is a specialist provider of IT Security Jobs located in the centre of Silicon Beach in Los Angeles, California.

Posted in