HOW TO IDENTIFY A FAKE FACEBOOK PROFILE

The company Meta, previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram.  This post is focused on Facebook.

In the first quarter of 2022, Facebook took action on 1.6 billion fake accounts, In the first quarter of 2019, a record figure of approximately 2.2 billion fake accounts were removed by the social media platform.
In India alone, there are nearly 239.65 million Facebook users, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. So, one can imagine, the larger the user base, the larger is the number of scammers.

The vast majority of those deleted accounts were automated accounts that are often created by software programs. We all know that bots have been used for years to manipulate people. The good news is that in recent years, Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies have gotten much better at catching bots.

However, the challenge still lies when real humans create the fake accounts. In such cases, these social media companies have a much harder time catching them because such accounts are hard to identify, as they do not carry the same revealing digital signs of a bot. Approaches to find such accounts remain imperfect.  So, what can we do about it?

This means WE MUST OWN RESPONSIBILITY TO STAY SAFE. Here are some tips that can help you identify fake Facebook profiles.

FIRST & FOREMOST: TRUST BUT VERIFY
This means Do Not talk to strangers online. If you do not know them or recognize them, DO NOT accept friend request. These fake accounts would generally have an attractive photo because attractive photos entice people to befriend the account.

DO A REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH
If you want to know more, then the best way to identify a fake Facebook profile is to save the profile photo, and then do a reverse image search using https://www.google.com/imghp?hl=EN or www.tineye.com, and there are few more options that you may use to do a reverse image search. Doing so would reveal if the profile photo is real or fake? Such an exercise will show all the places where the photo has been used and it will be easy for you to spot if the profile photo is real or fake.

SEEING YOUR FRIENDS ALREADY BEING FRIENDS WITH STRANGER’S ACCOUNT DOES NOT MEAN ACCOUNT IS REAL
It is also important to remember that if you find such accounts already friends with your friends, it does not mean the accounts is genuine or real. Please know that fake accounts can connect with your friends as well as you. If you are unsure about an account, DO NOT accept the friend request, but send a message and enquire how does this person know you or where did you meet? Chances are such accounts will never respond, and if you do get a response, verify the correctness of the response.

Some of the other ways to spot a fake profile are:

• Check if the picture truly looks real or appears to be taken from the internet
• Check for group pictures on the account. Fake accounts would not have many group pictures
• The information shared in the profile would seem far from real
• Generally, fake accounts would not have wall posts on the Facebook page
• Messages would be far from practical. You might find them too nice or too good to be true
• Fake accounts are mostly fairly new accounts and not an old account
• Fake accounts may have no friends or they may have very few friends.

Remember, you can identify fake accounts, just stay alert!