Chances are if you have a Facebook account like millions of other internet users, you have logged on and noticed a post in your newsfeed that reads, “My dad said if I get 100,000 likes, I can get a new puppy,” accompanied by a photo of the most adorable little girl, or “Like” to show this little girl you care. “Share” to tell her she’s beautiful. Pray for her to beat the disease.This is a typical example of ‘like-farming.’ Like-farming is a scam that many are falling for daily on Facebook. When one person falls for the scam, it spreads as the fake story or photo immediately appears on the newsfeeds of all the clicker’s friends.
Have you noticed that once you see these pages you don’t usually see them again? Well, that’s a part of the plan. They are sold, stripped and get a new name to promote something else, like products that they get a commission for selling since they already have all of these likes in place. Facebook doesn’t allow this but it’s still happening on newsfeeds everyday. Unfortunately, if you like the picture, you are helping.
Tim Senft, founder of Facecrooks.com, a website that monitors scams and other illegal or unethical behavior on Facebook, points out, “The more likes and shares and comments and that sort of thing you have, the more likely it is to be seen by other people …. If they’re looking to sell the page in a black-hat forum somewhere, that’s what the value of the page is.”
Doesn’t seem so bad? Well it gets worse. Senft also found that these like-farming posts become more of a threat as the “new” page may be used to spread malware, software that attacks the user’s computer or for phishing, the act of trying to gather credit card numbers, passwords or other personal information through links to phony giveaways or contests.
“Simply liking a post, or the page itself, can’t spread a virus or phish a user. But malicious Facebook apps can, as can external links that page owners may choose to share to their followers,” shares Facecrooks.com; however, if the page owner has access to Facebook’s developer tools, they can collect data on the people who like the page. Personal information like gender, location and age can be used to target more personalized attacks.
The only way to cease these scams for now is to resist liking photos or do a little bit of research before clicking like. If you think you may have liked one of these photos, you can undo the like by going to your activity log and ‘unlike’ the post. Hackers are everywhere and the scams just keep on going with millions of innocent bystanders becoming victims.
