According to a new report out from Cloudmark, 20 to 40 percent of new profiles on Facebook could be fake. Neil Cook, the European head of technology services at Cloudmark stated “once set up with a portfolio of fake profiles, virus writers encourage users to click on links to malicious sites by including them on postings on other users’ walls or blogs.”
This highlights the increasingly challenging battle that Facebook is facing with spammers. Facebook has been heavily invested in fighting spam since early on. There are also reports that viruses previously found on Facebook are reappearing. MySpace had serious issues with spam early on which ended up driving many users away from the sight. Bogus friend requests and messages from spammers became unmanageable for many.
Facebook is now suffering from the same challenges that plagued MySpace. This will continue to be one of Facebooks most important focuses over the coming months.
![[Inside Social Apps 2012]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/ISA2012_336x100_F_RegisterNow.gif)
![[AllFacebook Stats: Facebook Analytics for Your Business]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/stpro_allfacebookstats.gif)
![[How can Facebook change your business?]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/FMB_A_MAY2011_336x100_F.gif)
Facebook will have a hard time cleaning these, but they must to continue to have credibility and NOT become MySpace.Although, to be fair, the title of this post is a bit overzealous and will likely get spread far and wide before the truth does — that it could be true that as little as "Less than a Quarter of New Profiles Are Fake" which would actually be stunningly small given the spammer's aggressiveness.20 to 40% is a pretty gigantic gulf when you're dealing with millions of new profiles a week.
Comment by dbrowell — October 7, 2008 @ 9:25 am
This isn't surprising… I bet the ratio of fake to real profiles on Myspace is even higher. It's an epidemic? Why? I have no idea (except for the spamming reason – which I know isn't why all fake profiles are created).
Comment by Nick Stamoulis — October 7, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
20-40% of new profiles is not the same as 20-40% of the whole site
Comment by Jonathan Kleiman — October 12, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
It's because people either want to: A) Emulate celebrities, royalty, public figures or other well known people, B) Spam people, commit fraud or steal your information OR C) Create a fake person because they either want to harass someone or have low self-esteem of themselves.
Never give out your personal information (i.e. bank account info, social security, etc) to anyone on the net. If someone asks for money, it is a scam unless you know that person in real life (and can fully trust them) or you have a group of people who can vouch for the person. Even still, it is your responsibility to fully research that person because only you can prevent fraud. Be wary of any links posted to your wall, especially if it goes to an unrecognized address. I can't tell you how many gullible people automatically click on those malicious links.
The bottom line is you can assume someone is legit, but always listen to your gut, especially if something does not seem right. And if it is a celebrity profile, do not even bother to friend them. A tiny amount of profiles are real–the overwhelming amount of them are fake.
Comment by Andrew Bruskin — November 4, 2011 @ 11:58 am