Fake Facebook profiles?

Lou.m

How can you tell?


I have numerous friends (real life ones) who don't use their actual names but use something else a nickname and a cartoon picture but we all know it is them. Sometimes they do it because they have a high profile job or I have one friend who was for a time serving time and does not wish to have a high online presence. One girlfriend comes from a high profile family and wants to keep attention away. These are genuine real life friends.

So it made me wonder how you tell fake profiles from real. Especially since I had someone pretending for ages to be a girl I actually knew until it just didn't sound like her and I realized something was up.

Not to mention just random fakes.

How do we tell. And what is the point ?? Unless it is an obvious scam?

Lou.m

Sorry I meant to post this in after hrs.

Can a mod move it? Sorry and thanks you

jimgoose

I don't fackan' know, mate - I actually am Jim Goose. That Bisley feller in Australia is a wanker.

Shiraz 4.99

I have about 4 for giving myself free lives on Candy Crush

Alf. A. Male

My profile pic is not fake, I just happen to look like Homer Simpson.

Lou.m

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

I have about 4 for giving myself free lives on Candy Crush

A cunning plan!

Sauve

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

I have about 4 for giving myself free lives on Candy Crush

:eek:
Genius! How did I not think of this?!

(I've already broken my life by messing with the clock on my phone, so I see no reason to stop now)

Hande hoche!

None of my friends look as sexy as the fakes' profile photos.

Arthur Beesley

What did your mate do time for? Identity theft?

Quin_Dub

I know of 2 people with "fake" facebook profiles.

One is a relative of an extremely high profile person in the US and uses a fake name to avoid attention.

The other is a parole officer in another European country and uses a fake name to avoid disgruntled parolees etc. from tracking them down...

Both fairly valid reasons if you ask me..

Daith

Hmm...I know using the gay dating app Grindr and the like the amount of fake profiles is unreal. I'm wondering if people setup a fake one for using Tinder?

Other than that maybe they use it for websites that want a FB login like The Journal or something?

Fred Swanson

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riffmongous

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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That's a good idea and it offers some nice trolling possibilities

I have lots of friends but none of them are important enough or paranoid enought to do that, they are all too ordinary/normal.

hfallada

I have a second profile with nothing but a name. I use it when you have to log in to Facebook to use a site.

smileyj1987

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

I have about 4 for giving myself free lives on Candy Crush

If you where my friend on Facebook I'd delete you . Anyone sends me a game request and they are gone .

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

moxin

FB has been riddled with fake FB profiles for years. Since they introduced social gaming, the only way to help you make progress other than spending money was to get extra lives from your own fake profiles. FB and their gaming cohorts have only themselves to blame for this as the restrictions on their games encourages the faking.

riffmongous

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I need to start making me a few of these :pac:

I know a secondary school teacher who uses a pseudonym on their profile. That kind of thing makes sense.

Multiple profiles for throwaway purposes not so much, though I suppose its not going to be discouraged since it keeps the apparent number of users up and makes it look even more popular and ubiquitous. I wonder how many facebook profiles are actually inactive.

OneArt

Back in the olden days of social media, I remember people used to use "fake" names on profiles like MySpace, Bebo etc. It just seemed the norm, putting your real name up was weird. Then Facebook popularized it.

The habit's followed me onto Facebook though. I used my real name for a bit but with a different surname, but even that got a bit too weird. I don't like the idea of being able to type my name into Google and it comes up with a picture.

Kaycee2

OneArt wrote: »

Back in the olden days of social media, I remember people used to use "fake" names on profiles like MySpace, Bebo etc. It just seemed the norm, putting your real name up was weird. Then Facebook popularized it.

The habit's followed me onto Facebook though. I used my real name for a bit but with a different surname, but even that got a bit too weird. I don't like the idea of being able to type my name into Google and it comes up with a picture.

Yeah i used to think of Facebook as the grown up bebo, bebo was for messing around, facebook i use to keep in touch of family abroad, im not mature enough for linkedin yet though

OneArt

OneArt wrote: »

I don't like the idea of being able to type my name into Google and it comes up with a picture.

Yeah I think people have become complicit in the erosion of their own privacy and their expectations of privacy alters as a result after willingly surrendering so much personal information into the public domain.

I'm not sure where that will end up, in a personal and a societal sense, but when it's gone it'll be gone forever.

Arthur Beesley

Some good stalking tips here. Keep up the good work.

Peregrine

I know teachers who use their first name and then something random for their second name or translate their name to Irish. I don't know anyone who uses fake profiles though.

Agent Smith

Fake facebook accounts? this is a fake boards account! I'm not even an Agent!

thelad95

A lot of teachers use fake names to avoid students seeing pictures of them on the piss....

Lou.m

Candie wrote: »

I know a secondary school teacher who uses a pseudonym on their profile. That kind of thing makes sense.

Multiple profiles for throwaway purposes not so much, though I suppose its not going to be discouraged since it keeps the apparent number of users up and makes it look even more popular and ubiquitous. I wonder how many facebook profiles are actually inactive.

Yeah I have a lot of friends who do it for similar reasons.

FreshKnickers

Does this mean there aren't sexy singles in my area who are dying to meet me?

Recondite49

I used to do this as lots of people roleplay as comic book characters or characters from famous books like Harry Potter.

Bitter experience has taught me Facebook doesn't mind you using a fake name provided they have a real phone number on file for you - they've never raised any objection for any of my accounts I've verified with a mobile. Having said that, if your plan is to buy a cheap SIM card and throw it away again you might want to think twice as they sometimes want to send you a verification SMS more than once.

This effectively makes anonymity very difficult on Facebook in my ever humble opinion!

Butterface

Recondite49 wrote: »

I used to do this as lots of people roleplay as comic book characters or characters from famous books like Harry Potter.

Bitter experience has taught me Facebook doesn't mind you using a fake name provided they have a real phone number on file for you - they've never raised any objection for any of my accounts I've verified with a mobile. Having said that, if your plan is to buy a cheap SIM card and throw it away again you might want to think twice as they sometimes want to send you a verification SMS more than once.

This effectively makes anonymity very difficult on Facebook in my ever humble opinion!

At the start I used a mash up of my real name with another name. I had it like that for a few years, until it got to the stage where people actually started calling me by that name and making it into a horrible nickname, so I changed it to my real name. I might actually change it again, getting a bit paranoid these days!

Facebook has asked for my number a few times.. what the hell for?! I also went into Facebook on my phone earlier and went to check messages and it was telling me to install messenger.. They can fúck off!

corner of hells

Butterface wrote: »

At the start I used a mash up of my real name with another name. I had it like that for a few years, until it got to the stage where people actually started calling me by that name and making it into a horrible nickname, so I changed it to my real name. I might actually change it again, getting a bit paranoid these days!

Facebook has asked for my number a few times.. what the hell for?! I also went into Facebook on my phone earlier and went to check messages and it was telling me to install messenger.. They can fúck off!

So your real name is ' I can't believe its Butter face'.

Recondite49

Butterface wrote: »

At the start I used a mash up of my real name with another name. I had it like that for a few years, until it got to the stage where people actually started calling me by that name and making it into a horrible nickname, so I changed it to my real name. I might actually change it again, getting a bit paranoid these days!

Facebook has asked for my number a few times.. what the hell for?! I also went into Facebook on my phone earlier and went to check messages and it was telling me to install messenger.. They can fúck off!

Good man, don't give them an inch. I purchased a job lot of SIM cards on eBay and use these whenever a site requires a phone number, only to throw them away. Sadly with Facebook they get antsy about people doing this so sometimes ask to send you a verification code again. Ugh.

harry Bailey esq

my Facebook name is an oft used alias that id give to inquisitive policemen back when i was a young scamp,everyone im friends with knows me though,so no shady doin's afoot

Piliger

I keep a fake Facebook account. I use it for web sites that will no longer allow email based registration and insist on social web sites only, but where I want to comment or subscribe anonymously.

FullblownRose

Recondite49 wrote: »

I used to do this as lots of people roleplay as comic book characters or characters from famous books like Harry Potter.

Bitter experience has taught me Facebook doesn't mind you using a fake name provided they have a real phone number on file for you - they've never raised any objection for any of my accounts I've verified with a mobile. Having said that, if your plan is to buy a cheap SIM card and throw it away again you might want to think twice as they sometimes want to send you a verification SMS more than once.

This effectively makes anonymity very difficult on Facebook in my ever humble opinion!

You can verify by email

Recondite49

FullblownRose wrote: »

You can verify by email

Well it's true you can verify your e-mail address but this won't be sufficient to stop you from getting the "your account may be fake" page hence my suggestion about SMS. It seems the name isn't important, so long as they have a real number. By all means give it a try yourself to confirm!