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The fake Facebook profile industry

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Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#51

Post by ggus »

fiatpandas wrote: post #12

This... was an unreadable experience. Gratuitous animations, football field sized paragraph widths, proportional/fluid CSS sizing (thought maximizing my browser on a 1080p screen would allow me to see more), bite sized paragraphs interspersed with information-thin graphic inserts, full width graphics that have a larger height than your browser viewport, text swooshing down the screen while you're scrolling because th…

There used to be a "Kill Button" in Opera browser that, once activated, would remove any clicked element.

It was so easy to get rid of unwanted divs. I would like something like that for the latest version of firefox, but I couldn't find anything similar.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#52

Post by astura »

scraft wrote: post #49

1. I got told many years ago, that when you get that crazily bad emails, where it claims to be from some official source, but there are spelling mistakes, the return email address is obviously wrong, grammer is terrible, etc. the sort where it is so completely obviously it is a scam - often this is done on purpose, they aren't intereseting >99% of people who can spot a scam, they are interested in the 2. Separately t…

See Why Do Nigerian Scammers Say They are From Nigeria?: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/why-do-...

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#53

Post by pjc50 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #43
laumars wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've reported spam accounts to Facebook - in fact I do so whenever I come across one. And on more than one occasion Facebook have closed the ticket claiming the account was legitimate. If some of Facebook's own moderation team cannot differentiate between spam accounts and legitimate ones then what hope is there for others?

Facebook's moderation team faces far different incentives and consequences than you when checking if an account is spam. Which is worse - a false positive, or a false negative? Facebook would rather leave 999 false profiles up and not accidentally close 1 genuine profile that just happens to look spammy. From their perspective, ruining someone's Facebook experience by deleting their account is worse than letting ever…

Facebook will happily ban real people using names they are commonly known by if that's not their birth name. I agree that false positives are bad but they need to take a look at their prioritisation of these actions.

https://www.shortlist.com/tech/facebook-has-fixed-its-real-n...

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#54

Post by pjc50 »

anpat wrote: post #46
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's moderation team faces far different incentives and consequences than you when checking if an account is spam. Which is worse - a false positive, or a false negative? Facebook would rather leave 999 false profiles up and not accidentally close 1 genuine profile that just happens to look spammy. From their perspective, ruining someone's Facebook experience by deleting their account is worse than letting ever…

I am sure I will sound naive to you but what do you mean by AWS accounts here?

Closing someone's https://aws.amazon.com/ account for any reason potentially destroys their business and (if not reversed promptly) loses data.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#55

Post by linkmotif »

pohl wrote: post #44
dannyw wrote: post #3

I find it unbelievable that Facebook doesn't have the fake profile situation under control. Facebook builds an incredibly detailed social graph of every user (and non-user) with a big trail of activity, on and off Facebook. Surely there are signs; surely there are common characteristics, and if this journalist can write such a detailed exposé with only public data, Facebook can do much better.

Why would they scuttle their own engagement metrics by pruning out highly-engaged segments of the social network, though?

I'd think because at least publicly they've placed a great deal on emphasis on accounts being real, with the stated goal of producing a certain kind of environment. If your social network becomes polluted with trash and even brutal scams, then won't engagement go down? But I guess they've run the numbers.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#56

Post by fishtopher »

ggus wrote: post #51
fiatpandas wrote: post #12

This... was an unreadable experience. Gratuitous animations, football field sized paragraph widths, proportional/fluid CSS sizing (thought maximizing my browser on a 1080p screen would allow me to see more), bite sized paragraphs interspersed with information-thin graphic inserts, full width graphics that have a larger height than your browser viewport, text swooshing down the screen while you're scrolling because th…

There used to be a "Kill Button" in Opera browser that, once activated, would remove any clicked element. It was so easy to get rid of unwanted divs. I would like something like that for the latest version of firefox, but I couldn't find anything similar.

not as elegant as a single button, but this does the same job:

* Ctrl + Shift + C

* Select your div

* Press [Delete]

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#57

Post by abtom »

throwawayfish wrote: post #32

Using a throwaway account to keep things private Last year I was "sex-torted" on Facebook but not by a ring of French criminals. Instead, it was by someone I had chatted with on the internet years ago (while we were both still teenagers) She had recently gotten divorced and contacted me after many years away. We spoke about intimate things (I never shared intimate images, though she did) and were getting closer and c…

This is something that could have happened to anyone. Not just because of misplaced trust in an online partner but because it's easy to create fake screenshots of conversations using Photoshop or simply Inspect Element.

I'm interested in how you mitigated the damage once the post was published. A good strategy might have been to simply discredit it as being fake/photoshopped along with a small tutorial showing how easy it is to create (most aren't tech savvy enough to understand this already).

True you'd be lying, but this is certainly not below the level of someone who's falsely accusing you.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#58

Post by ahakki »

anpat wrote: post #46
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's moderation team faces far different incentives and consequences than you when checking if an account is spam. Which is worse - a false positive, or a false negative? Facebook would rather leave 999 false profiles up and not accidentally close 1 genuine profile that just happens to look spammy. From their perspective, ruining someone's Facebook experience by deleting their account is worse than letting ever…

I am sure I will sound naive to you but what do you mean by AWS accounts here?

AWS stands for Amazon Web Services. https://aws.amazon.com/

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#59

Post by alexandre_m »

"One of them said that she made 10,000 euros ($14,800 CDN) in a single month by “sharing links on Facebook.” She also claimed that the network was based in France, Spain and Italy. Both women abruptly ended all communication with us after initially agreeing to an interview."

I'd rather suspect those are false confessions and more an attempt to attract new members in this scheme network who hope to make huge amount of money.

Re: The fake Facebook profile industry

#60

Post by mc32 »

DanBC wrote: post #45
ams6110 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example of how everything you post online or send in an email is there forever and can come back to haunt you. I'm sorry for your experience but hope others can learn from this.

But more importantly fuck people who kink-shame. It's just sex, and people into kink tend to have better sense of consent and mutuality.

Right but climate changes and what is acceptable and not changes over time. What was empowering in the 1970s is today something different. What is suffocating today will tomorrow be different.

Mores and interpretation change over time. In other words, yesterdays actions are viewed through today's lenses.

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