If you’ve ever received a spam message on Facebook or get a friend request from a suspicious-looking account, chances are it is a fake account. These fake accounts are used for spam purposes or in some cases used to phish for account information or other types of sensitive personal information.
The good news is that Facebook is doing something about it as the company has recently filed a lawsuit in the US Federal court where they are taking four companies and three individuals to task for selling and promoting fake accounts. These companies were also selling fake followers and also fake likes, where such actions could artificially cause a post to look like it is doing better than it really is.
According to the company, they are hoping that with this lawsuit, they will be able to send a message and “reinforce that this kind of fraudulent activity is not tolerated.” Facebook isn’t alone in dealing with fake accounts as other platforms such as Twitter and Instagram are also running into similar issues.
More recently Amazon themselves had a victory of sorts when the FTC managed to settle a case on fake reviews left on products. That being said, we doubt that fake accounts can ever truly be banned, but hopefully these legal proceedings will set a precedent where companies who engage in such behavior will realize that the cost of a lawsuit will be more than what they might be able to make from such activities.
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