You know that cute boy from another state you friended back in high school? Yeah, they might not really exist.
Don’t misunderstand, though — not all of these fake accounts are made by people aiming to steal your money or load you with spam. That’s only about 1.5 percent of the 955 million monthly Facebook users. According to Facebook’s company filings (whose date is current up to June 30), about 4.8 percent of all Facebook profiles are just copies of other profiles. Which a lot of people do for pretty innocent reasons — you’re technically able to have one Facebook account that your parents/employer/stalker can see, and a whole other one that your real friends can comment on. And you have to account for the accounts people make for their pets or businesses. These account for the “user-misclassified accounts,” 2.4 percent of all accounts on Facebook. Once of which is my aunt’s pet chicken, Doll E. Parton. True story.
Facebook apparently finds fake accounts through tracking the activity of its users (which is creepy all by itself!), but there still isn’t a foolproof way to detect a fake account from one being run by a real person. Facebook even admits that these numbers may not be fully accurate! But all the same, it’s enough to tick off a lot of people. Not just people who use Facebook as an advertising tool, but people looking for new friends, coworkers located in a different city, or anyone who just hates useless stuff on the Internet.
I mean, I know it’s a big Internet out there. But come on, people. Don’t clog it up, please.
[via Betanews]
Have you ever encountered a fake Facebook profile? What about a Twitter bot or other social media robot?
Image sources:
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guest
I have one of those “fake” facebook accounts. I use it to play games so that I don’t have to annoy all of my friends with game requests. I just add others who play the games that I do on that account, as I don’t want random strangers on my newsfeed, or looking at my private information. I also use that same account to enter contests.
guest
I have three accounts technically. One is my old account from high school – it’s deactivated but it still exists. I then have my main account, and then a gaming account. I don’t understand why this is “disturbing”.
guest
I’ve seen many fake celebrity pages, where they are obviously fake… Seeing as their names are spelt wrong
I mostly just use my facebook for playing games. When I finish my games on my account, I go onto my boyfriends and play on his since he doesn’t mind
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@daydreams_nightmares@xanga -
It isn’t. Remember, with 2 minutes and a keyboard lovelyish could sensationalize burnt toast
guest
I have 78 facebook accounts.
No friends, but holy crap you should see my farmville!
orchid / 123 posts
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - I just thought it was disturbing just because of the sheer amount that are out there. No to mention the inefficiency of Facebook’s tracking system for all this.
guest
i don’t see the point in having more than one facebook account….nor do i see the point in having more than one xanga account. but that’s just me. i’m not on facebook trying to “hide” anything from my parents or anything, and i don’t hold back with my “real” friends on there either lol.
but to each his own! i know a lot of people create extra facebooks so they can score that new building they’re building in farmville quicker. i even know someone who created facebook accounts for her 3 dogs so she’d have more farmville neighbors. i think it’s ridiculous but they enjoy it so whatever.
guest
I think that’s normal. Why not clog it up? I’ll belong to the 4.8 % soon probabaly, I think that’s the only smart thing to do these days.
guest
n fb You gotta read my post http://punkrockcowboy.xanga.com/765186046/beware-of-online-dating/ or at least see the pictures between what this one chick looked like on fb and what she looked like in real life. Completely different people lol.
guest
This honestly surprises you?
hydrangea / 88 posts
There’s a lot of things on the internet that you shouldn’t assume are real… What am I? Am I real? Is this real life?
guest
Catfish anyone? A documentary about “Young filmmakers document their colleague’s budding online friendship with a young woman and her family which leads to an unexpected series of discoveries.” There were several of the fake accounts right there.
guest
Aren’t we clogging up the internet with ‘magazine’ style ‘blogs’ that basically and very redundantly use other people’s blog posts to get more traffic through the ‘fake’ site so they can push advertising? Google search used to pull up xanga blogs real good about 5 years ago because the built in meta tagging was so good, now you almost never see xanga near the front pages on a google search unless you specifically type the word xanga, and it’s not helping that sites like this grab and republish stuff. Media is getting so bad about that, you almost can’t find original sources any more. Facebook is only a tiny dent in the whole ‘clogging’ thing.
guest
This is scary, but as an internet marketer I can easily see how it can be done.
guest
@GrandFortuna@xanga - I wish I could rec this comment a million times.
guest
Why is this surprising?? Every website has fake accounts. Less than 2% is nothing.
guest
One of the advisors at my school had a “student and work” facebook profile and then a person one. And then their are the joke alias and pets (like you mentioned).
The only ones that get on my nerves are one created by guys pretending to be girls who introduce you to the guy. I don’t know if this happens elsewhere, but apparently it is a “thing” Egyptians dudes do (the one made the girl Christian, also, which I didn’t know at the time wouldn’t be likely…Muslim dude friends with a Christian girl in Egypt). Every country probably had its creepers, but damn did a handful of dudes love doing that crap with the American girls who would go to AUC.
guest