NJ FB Posters: How to Know if You’re Responding to Real Person

🔺   Facebook is loaded with fake accounts

🔺   When you respond to a fake post, you start seeing more of them on your feed

🔺   There are ways to detect fake posts

Something is happening on Facebook.

Look at your page and you can't miss it.

Yes, a million ads seem to pop up, but something more insidious is happening.

It's easy to get drawn in.

How often have you seen the picture of the child looking for his home?

At first, it's heartbreaking.  How could anyone just abandon a child like that?

You share the story and all your friends leave comments.

The problem with this is that it's fake.

This is similarly done with pets.

Many of us hate the thought that there's an animal in distress.

Again, many of these posts are fakes.

Finally, how many times have you seen a political post that grabs your attention?

You don't want to respond, but you can't help yourself.

Next thing you know, many friends start responding, and before you know it, you're at war with friends you haven't even seen since high school, or worse, people you never knew.

I coined a term for that.  Someone throws a grenade and watches as it blows up into a war of words.

So many local Facebook pages have so many examples of this.

The problem is, the person starting these wars, more times than not isn't even a real person.  Yet they managed to create an online war among a bunch of strangers.

It goes beyond these conversations.

If you try to shop on the Facebook Marketplace, that's another area that is fraught with fraud.

Again, many of those posting items for sale, are not real people.

How to know if a poster is a real person?

▪️It's been my experience, that the name of the poster is typically foreign.

▪️Click on the name, and the poster's page will pop up.  Has the poster ever contributed before?

▪️Next, on this same page, look to the right for a button that says, "View Profile"

▪️Click on the button, and you'll see the "poster's" page.  This is where you'll immediately spot a fake.

In my case, I write for Townsquare Media, and it's easy to verify who I am.

In other cases, click on the poster's name and go to their profile page.

Do you see regular posts on their page, or have they only posted a couple of times over the years?

How many friends do they have?

Most of us have hundreds or thousands of friends.

If someone only has 50 or a hundred, does that seem real?

You'll receive more similar posts when you respond to anything on Facebook.

Therefore, the wise thing to do is only respond to posts from people you know.