Facebook Likes Can Be A Scam

The old bait-n-switch scam is alive and strong on Facebook. The latest hustle is setting up a heart-wrenching picture with a small, gut-punching narrative, asking for a “Like” to show your support/denial of whatever the hero/villain is (e.g., puppies/cancer), and asking for shares. The like and share numbers go up. When the numbers hit a certain limit, and the post’s “Edge rank” is high, the creative scammer then sells the page to the highest bidder. That bidder can then change the content of the page. He can’t change the title of the page, but all of the content can be changed. Then your name shows up in “sponsored posts” in other people’s feeds, such as “Christine likes Hung Hmong Hot Hunks” instead of “Christine likes puppies!” Nice, right? And you’d have no clue, until some Hmong men start friending you like the Dickens…

This post by Daylan Pearce explains it quite well: (Hat tip Scott over at my friend Fran Wilde’s blog)

So, stop getting pulled into LIKING stuff, especially if it has more than 200 Likes, and never if it has over, say, 5,000 Likes, unless you know, for sure that is the official page of the thing you are clicking “Like” for.