Facebook is the best know pastime for most of the people. Some people use it for communicating with their far away relatives and friends. Some people use it for business purposes. There is no specific reason for using Facebook. Recently Facebook launched Facebook Home. The point is are you actually safe with the information you provide? According to Facebook, 83 million accounts are fake which was reported in this article by USA TODAY. Let’s talk on how to identify fake accounts on Facebook.
Courtesy: Naij.com
So I have some parameters which I use to identify fake Facebook profiles.
1) Profile Picture:
Usually, fake Facebook accounts have pictures of celebrities. But that doesn’t mean that the profile is fake. Another most common picture used is that of girls famous on the internet. Such pics are obscene or provocative. Such pics are used so provocatively that you cannot deny the request. To make sure that you can use a reverse image search function provided by Google. Just drag the profile picture into Google Images. If you see too many results linked to different inappropriate websites, then the profile is obviously fake. So watch out folks! For an instance, try dragging the profile picture of this fake account.
2)Profile:
Profile details of fake Facebook accounts have a little or stereotypical information. Using this you can understand the vicinity of the fake profile holder. For an instance, if the College or University provided by the profile is popular in a specific area then you can understand the location. For example, if the college says St. Xavier’s, then probably it is from Mumbai or if it says Punjab University, then it’s probably from Punjab. If the “works at ” is a stupid page, then the profile is used to promote the page. The information is very misleading.
3) Name:
Here comes an interesting part. Usually, the names are common or weird. Some examples of such names are:
1) Princess Kathy
2) Shruti Gomez (How stupid can people be!) or any other name of celebrities.
4) Friends
If the number of friends of the fake facebook profile is incredibly large and other parameters fit, then it is guaranteed that the account is fake. The most favorite victims of fake Facebook profiles are desperate people. Watch out, guys. It’s high time.
Fake Facebook profiles are usually used for Phishing purposes. Using phishing technique, a person can get your id and password remotely, that too because of your foolishness.
That was my take on identifying fake Facebook profiles. If you have any other techniques, leave a comment below and let people know.
