Technology
How to spot a fake Facebook profile
All of us have heard the horror stories that abound surrounding fake or only vaguely truthful Facebook profiles. From swindlers to those with more sinister motives, being able to spot a fraudulent profile is key to ensuring your online safety and security. We’ve rounded up the 7 ways you can tell if a profile is legitimate or not.
- Look for photos on the profile. Authentic profiles tend to have plenty of different photos. A profile with a single, often quite vague, picture is usually fake.
- Look for activity – An active profile is a legitimate one. If the user hasn’t updated their status or engaged with other users the chances are good that the profile is a fake.
- Look at the usage trail – Is the user a member of a variety of different groups and a liker of a broad range of pages? If not, they’re either not using Facebook very often or more likely, the profile is fake.
- Check out their friends list – A plentiful friends list does not always equal an authentic profile. A plethora of spammy sounding accounts or almost exclusive list of accounts held by the opposite sex usually mean the profile is a fake.
- Check out their info – Has the user listed things like schools/universities attended or current/previous workplaces?
- Check the birthdate – While Facebook doesn’t require you to enter a birth date, accounts that list dates like 1/1 or 31/12 are often fake as these numbers are unique and easy to type in.
- Check out recent posts to the wall – Posts asking whom the person is or why they’ve added the other user are both red herrings for a fake account.
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