July 13, 2012 | Truthdig.com
Companies in pursuit of “likes” on Facebook are discouraged to hear that many of those clicks are coming from fake profiles set up to spread spam.
The social-networking site makes money by charging companies for advertisements designed to attract new “likes.” Some of those companies are refusing to pay Facebook and private marketing consultants for their services on the basis that they don’t reach “real people.”
“Likes” are desirable for businesses because in theory they increase exposure on the site. When a user clicks such a link, the associated company can post content on their news feed, send them marketing messages and alert their friends to the connection, supposedly boosting their marketing power.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly. Follow him on Twitter: @areedkelly.
BBC:
Earlier this year Facebook revealed that about 5-6% of its 901 million users might be fake—representing up to 54 million profiles.
“Spammers and malware authors can mass-produce false Facebook profiles to help them spread dangerous links and spam, and trick people into befriending them,” [Graham Cluley of the security firm Sophos] said.
“We know some of these accounts are run by computer software with one person puppeteering thousands of profiles from a single desk handing out commands such as: ‘like’ as many pages as you can to create a large community.
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