On most websites to get their services you will need to make an account and now-a-days it’s very common to use social media. As a result of this it’s very easy for anyone to create fake accounts and appear as another entity. So how do you spot fake accounts, especially in social media where there are billions of accounts? Well usually they look pretty legitimate but with a deeper look at the accounts you can figure out if it’s the real deal.
Fake Profile Pictures
If an account has the same default profile picture (If it’s not a recently created account) or is same as another person or it’s a very common wallpaper picture, then the probability of it being fake is very high. Often fake accounts don’t post a lot of pictures or has some random images found from the internet. If an account ticks the above boxes, it’s highly likely that it’s fake.
Very few posts
A real account gets followers/friends due to the engagement. If an account doesn’t have a lot of posts, pictures or videos but it has thousands of followers, then that’s a red flag for a fake account.
Misspelling
Misspelling is a tactic used by people when creating fake accounts. For example let’s take Barack Obama’s Twitter account. His twitter ID is @BarackObama but it’s possible to make a fake account @BarrackObama where a lot of people will not see the difference of the extra “r”.
No Common friends
If you come across a fake account on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram then check their friends/followers and see if you can find common friends. If you don’t see anyone common with you that means it’s another indication of a fake account.
More following than followers
If you come across an account which has a huge gap between the people they follow and their followers, then it’s a red flag for a fake account. Most fake accounts follow other people with the hope of following them back to increase the follow count.
Extra Spaces
In order to make social media accounts, they have to be unique. All that’s needed for making an account unique is to not have the same characters as another account. By adding spacing characters like an underscore, hyphen, comma and a period between names make it unique. For example, “Barack.Obama”, “Barack_Obama”, “Barack-Obama”, “Barack,Obama” are all valid identifiers.
Too fast Engagement
Having more likes on your posts is good, so people buy the likes rather than earning it. It’s not easy to see this but imagine if an account posts a picture and in 10 seconds it gets 2000 likes and the post doesn’t have any comments is also a flag for a fake account. Because real engagement happens slowly and is a mix of likes and comments.
By using these tips and tricks it’s possible to identify the fake accounts lurking in the shadows and ban them. If you have any more tips let us know in the comments below ;).
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