Facebook "Like" System Devalued By Fake Users 99
New submitter k(wi)r(kipedia) writes "A BBC investigation has found evidence of fake users skewing the results of Facebook's 'Like' recommendation system. The BBC set up a Facebook page for a fake business called VirtualBagel and invited users to 'like' it. The page reportedly attracted 'over 1,600 likes' within twenty-four hours. The test appeared to confirm the claims of a social media marketing consultant who contacted the BBC after he noticed a disparity in the distribution of users 'liking' the products of his clients. 'While they had been targeting Facebook users around the world, all their "likes" appeared to be coming from countries such as the Philippines and Egypt.'"
Re:In essence people Egypt like stuff they know (Score:5, Informative)
People in Egypt and the Philippines are being paid to click on links. By doing that the client "VirtualBagel" pays more for their advertising service (a facebook page).
Re:The scam is simple (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook lets them send messages to others telling them they 'like' something. So they 'like' it, then get to send the spam message advertising their viagra/rolex/whatever they're trying to sell.
Simple really. If 98% of email is spam, them likely 98% of likes are spam too.
"Earlier this year Facebook revealed that about 5-6% of its 901 million users might be fake - representing up to 54 million profiles."
If 5% of their users are fakes, that's 45 million, if each likes 5000, thats 200 billion fake likes. The bigger question is why do advertisers imagine that Facebook pages are somehow more traffic'd than Internet pages, when every facebook user is an internet user, but not every internet user is a facebook user.
It's like putting adverts in second life, remember that?
Thanks for the explanation because that was definitely not in the BBC article.
Re:In essence people Egypt like stuff they know (Score:5, Informative)
Fake FB accounts are set up and send friend requests to random users. Some FB users will accept any friend request they get. I know a few who do this. If a friend likes something, it shows up in your news feed (which is dumb, why do I care that you like a company?). If you click the link and then like it yourself, the company just gained access to your feed too. And your demographic info. Mission accomplished.
I see this all the time - so-and-so likes Target or Walmart or whatever. It makes me feel kinda bad for those people, because they don't realize how much personal info they give up when they click that little button. It's the same reason I never use FB to log in anywhere - if a site requires FB login only, I don't use it.