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Facebook is taking another swipe at fraudulent likes that artificially inflate a Facebook Page’s number of fans.
In a note published last Friday on the Facebook Security Page, the social media giant advises Page administrators that it is working “aggressively to get rid of fake likes.”
In its ongoing battle against phony-like peddlers, scammers and spammers, Facebook has tried many approaches.
It has won $2 billion in legal judgments against spammers, and uses algorithms and machine learning to detect phony accounts and spammy Likejacking tricks.
Facebook also tracks Page engagement and caps the number of likes a Page can receive if it detects fraudulent activity, effectively penalizing Pages that purchase fake likes by limiting their ability to attract more genuine followers.
And yet scam businesses offering to sell likes to Page owners that will supposedly increase customer engagement continue to reap millions – by one estimate, this shady industry is worth $200 million per year.
Now, in conjunction with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Facebook is trying persuasion under the banner of ‘awareness’, but with a threat in tow.
Buying fake likes will only hurt you, Facebook says:
Fraudulent likes are going to do more harm than good to your Page. The people involved are unlikely to engage with a Page after liking it initially. Our algorithm takes Page engagement rates into account when deciding when and where to deliver a Page's legitimate ads and content, so Pages with an artificially inflated number of likes are actually making it harder on themselves to reach the people they care about most.
Like me do
Despite the warnings, lawsuits, and Facebook’s best efforts to catch fraudulent likes, a cottage industry has sprung up in recent years offering likes for sale.
One such business, called Marketing Heaven, says it guarantees “real” Facebook likes from “pre-screened” and “flesh and blood” fans.
Marketing Heaven’s website says it doesn’t use fake accounts, while warning that many other services offering likes for sale are nothing but posers, charlatans and scam artists.
The company also says in an FAQ that its services are “perfectly legit” and compliant with Facebook’s terms of service.
Well, that’s simply not true, according to Facebook’s help page titled “Can I buy likes for my Facebook page?”
Facebook’s advice for increasing engagement with Pages is to generate likes from “real people” who are interested in a Page’s content, which requires audience targeting.
And what’s the best way to reach your target audience?
Buying ads from Facebook, of course.
If you’d like to stay up to date on everything Naked Security on Facebook, please like our page. Unless you’re not real, of course…
Image of Get More Likes sign courtesy of Shutterstock.
The only way to deal with facebooks repulsive business model is to use ad blocker and fb purity extensions which restore a newsfeed to almost pristine useability and functionality
You should bold and H3 the sentence: “Buying ads from Facebook, of course.” as you nailed it right on the head; Facebook has become all about “don’t let them pay anyone else to help promote their product, make them pay US and us only”.
The underlying scheme behind all of these “white knight” crusades they pretend to fight is that they take away $ from FB, and FB wants to funnel any and all monies into their bank accounts. To them, it’s users are nothing more than dollar signs.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
This is all PR hogwash on the part of Facebook. Facebook allows plenty of fictional people and fake likes and does nothing about it.
I know of a page that is followed by and receives comments from thousands of fictional people. The page pertains to an obscure long-dead entertainer who could not attract hundreds (let alone thousands) of real fans in this century. The page has been active for many years. The page’s administrator, who seems to thrive on receiving attention from certain people (that is, the 50 or so legitimate followers of said page), has not tried to sell anything until this year. Facebook has done nothing to disgorge the page of its thousands of phony followers.
It’s just like any other advertising. Companies pay for their products to be in TV shows and movies and pay celebrities to endorse their stuff. Why wouldn’t they buy likes on a social network?
What about companies offer inducements to likes, e.g. enter a competition to win some of our products by liking us? That also seems like buying fake likes to me, but I see it happening often and I’m not sure if its against the facebook TOS.