Why the number of people creating fake accounts and using second identity on Facebook are increasing.

03/05/2010 norajong 58 comments

Social networking communities have become more popular since the introduction of Web 2.0. A major research study on the use of digital technologies by adults from 16 industrialised nations suggests that on average they spend a third of their leisure time online, belong to two social networking sites and have regular contact with people who they have met on the Internet (Harrison & Thomas, 2009). Social networking websites can be defined as web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and view their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Harrison & Thomas, 2009). One of the most common social networking communities is Facebook. The popularity of social networking communities such as Facebook demonstrate the addictive appeal of online and virtual communities across generations and cultures, particularly their attraction to teenagers, housewives, students and a new group of recently enfranchised elderly digital immigrants (Harrison and Thomas, 2009). For my conference paper, I am going to focus on Facebook and how people behave and present themselves on social networking sites. I will talk about how a lot of people create fake accounts on these websites and the reason why they do this.

Facebook is a social networking community that was created in September 2006. It was first created by a few college students in Harvard and was initially for use in within the university but slowly expanded worldwide (Carlson, 2010). Users do not need to pay any money to join this social networking community. Facebook allows users to create profiles with their photos, contact information and personal information. The main purpose of Facebook is to allow users to socialize and make new friends. Users can choose to communicate with their friends privately (through Facebook chat and messages) or publicly (writing on their ‘walls’). Other than that people can join interest and fan groups and even play online games. The Facebook boxes section includes mini games, a showcase for specific interests, and some other time-wasters such as brain teasers and perusing images or video to show on the profile page (Keenan, 2009). These elements are all add-on applications from third parties that have agreements with Facebook.com (Keenan, 2009). For privacy purposes, users can edit their own privacy settings to choose who can and cannot view their profiles.

There are a lot of users on Facebook but some of the people who join this social networking website seem to be creating fake accounts. Facebook has reached a level where the user base is roughly estimated to cover around 37% of the total world population and along with this huge user base, the fake user base has risen to 27% of the total Facebook users (Nyberg, 2010). In other words, it means that if you get 10 friendship requests a day, then out of that 10 only 7 or 8 are real and the rest are fake (Nyberg, 2010).

Facebook states in their terms and conditions that users should not provide any false personal information or create an account for anyone other than themselves without permission (Feds create fake accounts on SNS to collect evidence, 2010). There are a number of reasons why people create fake accounts on social networking websites instead of using their own identities. According to Dababneh (2008), the few reasons why people do this; it can be because of shallow relationships, for example, lovers testing and teasing each other. The other reasons could be because the person wants to take revenge, or that person likes to be stupid and fool around (Dababneh, 2008). However, the most common reason is because people do it for fun. It is especially common among the youth to set up fake accounts to fool their friends and colleagues on social grounds (Nyberg, 2010). Because of this fun habit of fooling others on Facebook, it has given a rise to fake account holders, sometimes even in the name of a real person who never used Facebook in his life (Nyberg, 2010). For example, just for the fun of it, some people would create fake Facebook accounts and use them to add their friends just to disturb them. Some even make fake accounts just so that they can put that they are in a relationship with someone when actually the person does not exist. Take for example the teenagers nowadays. There are a number of my friends in Facebook who are in fake relationships with random accounts they made up themselves. When asked why they do so, they said that they do it just for the thrill of it or to pull a prank on other people. The reason why people do this is because they may not be happy in real life because they do not have someone but while online, they can fool others that they are actually in a relationship.

Other than that, there are also a few number of users on Facebook that like to claim that they are in a relationship with someone else when they are not. For example, two best friends would change their statuses and mention in their profiles that they are both in a relationship when they are not in real life. This can also apply to people of the same gender. Because they are good friends, they like to state it in their profiles that they are in a relationship with each other. It is just because of the fun of it.

The second reason why people create fake Facebook accounts is for business purposes. It is very dangerous because there is a rise of fake accounts in Facebook. This is why every business needs to be smart while converting a Facebook lead to a prospect (Nyberg, 2010). Most of the fake business accounts are used by some companies themselves to promote their products; this is because people find it more convenient to believe in a product or a service when an individual refers or endorses it (Nyberg, 2010). If you look carefully, you can easily find out a good number of projects posted to create bulk Facebook accounts. The third reason is because of niche; there are a lot of groups or fan pages in Facebook and in order to grow the visibility of these groups or fan pages, the use of fake accounts is the best source (Nyberg, 2010).

Other than creating fake accounts on social networking websites, there are also people who hide their own identity online; meaning that they create a second identity online. The reasons why people do this are almost the same as why people create fake accounts on Facebook. However, there are people who create second identities online because they are not happy with themselves in real life. So when they are online, they can be a person whom they have always want to be. However, sometimes these people create conflicts because sometimes they steal other people’s photos and claim them as their own. Some people may even meet new people online and get into relationships while the other person does not even know that they are lying to them and they eventually get hurt.

Even though Facebook has a policy that people should only use their real names on the social networking site, there are also people, especially students nowadays saying that they modify or change their real names on the social network Facebook. This is because they are worry about how potential employers may perceive their online presence (Katz, 2010). Some people do not use their real names on Facebook because they do not want their workers or fellow colleagues to get too much information on their personal life. According to Dababneh (2008), some people create fake accounts just to monitor other peoples’ lives. Because Facebook is getting more and more popular these days, even parents join Facebook so a lot of teenagers like to use fake names so that their parents will not be able to find them there. These are all done because people don’t want their some people to think of them otherwise or either want privacy to themselves.

In order to prevent from all of this from happening, it is important that people know how to differentiate a real user from a fake. There are several methods which people can take note of. First of all, look for the address because most of the fake users in Facebook do not have a proper address in their info page (Nyberg, 2010). The profile picture is also another way to see whether a person is fake or not. Because fake users want to amaze us, they have pictures in their profiles. However, these pictures are merely collected from dating sites and other image sources. So in order to find out whether real or not, relate the images to the address or the age provided by the user (Nyberg, 2010). The friends list of a particular person can also tell you whether he/she is real or not. If a user’s address is from a particular region but they do not have friends from this place, then it is important to be cautious because it is uncommon for a person to not have any friends from their own place (Nyberg, 2010).

Because of the rise of fake accounts on social networking websites such as Facebook, they have taken actions in order to prevent these problems from happening. To make sure that people cannot set up accounts with fake names, the site has a long, constantly updated “blacklist” of names that people cannot use (Ortutay, 2009). Examples include names such as Batman or names tied to current events, such as Susan Boyle. Facebook has now taken actions to delete fake accounts on the social networking website. Once the site disables an account it deems fake, the holder has to contact Facebook to prove it is real (Ortutay, 2009). And in some cases, the company may even require the person to fax a copy of their government-issued ID, which Facebook says it destroys as soon as the account is verified (Ortutay, 2009). However, sometimes they made mistakes because the accounts they deleted or banned are real accounts. Take for example a woman, Alice Istanbul. She woke up one day to find herself locked out of her Facebook account because Facebook suddenly deemed fake. This was a very big problem for her as she was cut off from her friends, including many that she had no other way of contacting. Not only that, she also had no access to the pages she had set up for the jewellery design business she runs from her home (Ortutay, 2009).

In conclusion, there are a lot of reasons why people create fake accounts of social networking websites such as Facebook. These social networking sites are trying their best and doing what they can to stop this from happening. Even though actions have been taken to avoid these problems, it is still happening but hopefully this problem will stop soon.

Reference List:

Carlson, N (2010). “At Last — The Full Story Of How Facebook Was Founded” Busin
ess Insider. Retrieved March 29, 2010, from http://www.businessinside
r.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010-3#we-can-talk-about-that-after-
I-get-all-the-basic-functionality-up-tomorrow-night-1

Barton, Z (2006). Facebook goes corporate. Retrieved March 30, 2010, from http:
//news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-147857.html

Nyberg, S (2010). Fake accounts in Facebook – How to counter it. Retrieved Marc
h 27, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Fake-Accounts-in-Facebook—
How-to-Counter-It&id=3703889

Dababneh, R (2008). Fake Facebook profiles – Why and how to detect them?
Retrieved March 28, 2010, http://www.ranithebrainy.com/2008/11/fake
-facebook-profiles.html

Ortutay, B (2009). Real users caught in Facebook fake-name purge. Retrieved
March 27, 2010, from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/
2009/ 05/24/BUSQ17MUBG.DTL

Katz, A (2010). Students hiding Facebook identity from snooping recruiters.
Retrieved March 30, 2010, from http://www.projo.com/lifebeat/content
/lb_face book_pseudonym_03-06-10_HIHKOE7_v13.149ee1f.html

Harrison, R., Thomas, M (2009). Identity in Online Communities: Social
Networking Sites and Language Learning. Journal of Emerging
Technologies & Society. 7(2), 109-124.

Identity in Communities and Networks, Social Networks Facebook, second identity, social networking sites

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Comments

Written by Kundai Muradzikwa about 1 year ago.

Hi Nora

I was quite impressed with the opening facts that you provided me as a reader when i started reading this paper. It quickly grabbed my attention and encouraged me to read further. One thing that i would like to suggest is your actual thesus statement and argument which if im correct is what we see at the end of the first paragraph. I feel that it is a bit too vague and could be tuned up a bit more.

An issue that i was particularly concerned with was the frequent use of references work. Under different circumstances the use of many references would be considered to be a good thing but in this instance as a reeader i do not feel as though i even know the author of this paper, you. You have not included enough of your own views and i feel that if you were to allows us to get to know your opinions and views further that this paper would be very good.

One last suggestion that i have that i feel really would have captured any readers attention is the topic that you briefly touched on on fake accounts and how they are currently on the uprise. You should expand on this point more. On the whole though i must say that i really enjoyed reading your paper ad that i was absorbed through out.
Written by anonymous about 1 year ago.

I also have a fake Facebook account. No picture or info or anything. Just a fake name so that my one friend could friend me and I could see her photos on her FB page instead of her having to send me photos in individual emails. She asked me to get a FB account as a favor to her, so I did. I have no interest in a real FB account as I graduated from high school 23 years ago and I’m done with that whole mentality of obsessing over who likes me and who doesn’t and how many friends do I have, etc. I also have an extremely unique name. I’ve Googled and Yahooed myself and apparently I am the only person on the planet with this name. It’s just way too easy for anyone from my past to find me. I simply don’t want to deal with ex-boyfriends and ex-friends or even neighbors or co-workers popping up from my past or present and asking me to friend them. Um, can you say “awkward”? Can you say “hurt feelings”? How is that fun for people?

I know who I am. I define myself. No one else defines me. My mind is free.
Written by qurkeegurl about 2 years ago.

I agree that many set up fake accounts for the purpose of stalking and they are not necessarily youth. I came across a middle-aged one with a common name who created a fake “life” including a fake profession, fake credentials,fake city, fake hobbies, fake relationship with a celeb and with stolen photo’s and profile pic and has tricked thousands of respectable, professional, middle-aged followers. This person is doing all of this to meet impress a celebrity. A few of us found out, confronted and unfriended the fake since they have slandered us, everything from us being criminals to stalkers then opened other fake accounts on more than one social network to keep tabs on us even went as far as to contact and bully us through other friends and colleagues. In this case there is no doubt that this person is unstable therefore dangerous however there are no safeguards put into place other than an individuals diligence in order to prevent this. Those of us with an online business, website or blog are getting inundated with fake followers, tweeters, and comments as a result of this fake’s harrassment. As for the above situation a group of us are obtaining legal help but what can social networks do to prevent this to happening to others without making one jump through hoops to sign up.
Written by LMG about 2 years ago.

I have a fake account, but not for any of the reasons listed in the article. I have a physically abusive ex. For the past 6 years I’ve had to move and change jobs several times because of him (restraining orders aren’t that effective when the person doesn’t care.)

Because of this guy, I require as much anonymity possible online, making it difficult to keep in touch with close friends who live far away on social networks like facebook.. so I created a fake account to keep in touch with them and for exchanging info with new people I meet in real life, who otherwise would give me a funny look if I told them I didn’t have a FB account (no one exchanges phone numbers any more, which is fine by me.)

I would love to it to be under my own name, but I’m afraid.
Written by Mana Gement about 2 years ago.

I agree Tama. Whether it was intended or not, this conflates a reasonable desire for privacy (separating one’s personal life from a boss or potential abusive person’s Googlestalking) with deception (making accounts to tell people you’re a celebrity, hitting on your girlfriend from an anonymous account to test her loyalty, spam accounts), as well as role-playing accounts (people who use a social network interface to pretend to be Harry Potter characters and tell a story together).

As someone who protects her (distinctive and very Googleable) legal name from her personal life, and as someone who has seen a number of women leave Internet forums due to harassment, I find this unfortunate, and I hope the author will clarify in future work.
Written by Radek_Valenta about 2 years ago.

Well I believe that SNS that require proof of identity from its users will never succeed because most of people will not be happy to pass private informations. Also its not really possible to verify authenticity of those documents.
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi girls! I agree with Jocelyn, creating two accounts doesn’t mean it’s a fake account. My meaning of fake account in my paper was talking about people who create accounts with false information about themselves but in your case, I don’t think that’s considered as a fake account because you still use real information about yourself but just that you created two accounts for different reasons.

Thanks for your comments!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Radek, yes I meant that people who uses fake identities (not their real self and fake information about themselves) are fake accounts; or even people who create accounts for other purposes. I too do think administrators of SNS can avoid creations of fake accounts, maybe by asking people to send in some proof of identification for proof?

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Jordan, I do know some people who also create two accounts (one for personal use and one for more professional uses like for their colleagues and bosses). I do find it interesting that people to keep their online-life as personal as possible. They are not misleading and I don’t think that kind of relates to my point of fake accounts because I meant people creating fake identities not creating two accounts. Because by creating two accounts, you are still using your real identity, just that you created two for different purposes. Interesting comment though thanks a lot for it!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Richie, I think the number of people of people using privacy settings to protect their personal information is increasing. A lot of my friends on Facebook even set their privacy settings so that other people can’t add them as a friend on Facebook but only they can choose who to be friends with. But however I think by doing this, what’s the point of joining a SNS when you won’t let other people befriend you. That’s my opinion but I guess it’s also for their own privacy.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Tama, actually in my opinion I don’t really think it’s really that important whether people use fake names on Facebook as long as they are who and what they say they are on their profiles. Because a lot of my friends use fake names just for the fun of it but at the same time, I think that this kind of things make it easier for other people (who creates fake accounts for other purposes) to create fake accounts on Facebook.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Wendy, in my opinion, yes I think that social networks should set up a stricter member account. Like for example in Korea, there’s this blogging system, Cyworld (it’s not a social networking site though) that requires users to send them a scan of their identification card to confirm their identification. But however, some people do not trust sending their identification to websites and some people might find it troublesome so they won’t bother signing up for it in the end. It’s hard to say but yes I still however think that it is a better for SNS to be more strict on these things.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Janette, interesting that you say that people create fake accounts at first through fear. I too do think that this may be one of the factor. Yes there are a lot of businesses (especially the online ones) create Facebook accounts and post photos of their products and tag people inside, like in a way trying to sell items through Facebook. Yes I too do think it’s silly that Facebook wants us to send our ICs just to confirm our identity, I wouldn’t trust them too.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi all, thanks for all the sources and readings regarding my topic. Thanks for the feedback, I will make sure to use more academic resources in my next writing And yes I do agree with Laura that a lot of people create fake accounts for Facebook applications and games (my friend is one of them) and some of her accounts got blocked off from the applications because some of the Facebook application are starting to delete and blocking users they suspect of having multiple accounts just for the sake of these games.

Thanks for the comments!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Sharlene, yes a lot of marketing companies set up fake accounts to study their target market and yes you are supposed to agree to their terms and conditions but I guess some people just do not bother. Facebook did mention that our information won’t be accessible by third party like applications but in my opinion, with fake accounts, they wouldn’t know what is the purpose of the person creating the account.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Jason, I do agree that people accept random friend requests even from people they don’t know and I also (in my opinion) think that’s why the number of people creating fake accounts on Facebook is increasing because they just create accounts and add people up just to stalk them. I too do agree that if someone tags you in a photo, the person they’re trying to hide from may see them but then maybe they don’t want them to see what they posts on their wall? Could be one of the reason.

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Michelle, a lot of friends create fake accounts to just because of the games on Facebook. Like I mentioned in my paper, Facebook did try to come up with a method to get rid of these accounts but it’s not easy to get rid of all of them.

To make sure that people cannot set up accounts with fake names, the site has a long, constantly updated “blacklist” of names that people cannot use (Ortutay, 2009). Facebook has now taken actions to delete fake accounts on the social networking website. Once the site disables an account it deems fake, the holder has to contact Facebook to prove it is real (Ortutay, 2009). And in some cases, the company may even require the person to fax a copy of their government-issued ID, which Facebook says it destroys as soon as the account is verified (Ortutay, 2009).

Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Fransisca, I’ve mentioned in my paper that there are a lot of reasons why people create fake accounts. It could be just for the fun for it, or some people would like to keep their real identity private from others like their co-workers and many more. But in my own opinion, I think the main reason people do this is just for the fun of it. Thanks for your comment!
Written by Nora about 2 years ago.

Hi Matthew, yes I was quite shocked as well when I found out that there was a lot of people creating fake accounts on Facebook while I was doing research. I knew that there were fake accounts but I didn’t expect the number to come up to such a large amount. I too do agree that people should be more honest in these kind of social websites. Thank you for your comment!
Written by matthewh about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora,

I find your paper interesting because when researching my paper I found that most virtual communities people tended to be honest about their identity’s. It’s interesting that once that once you focus onto particular sites such as Facebook or online dating sites where you would expect people to be more honest because the issue of identity is more important that there is much more evidence of people misrepresenting themselves

Matthew
Written by TessaG about 2 years ago.

Hi Jason, thanks for adding those statistics – details such as these would definitely have the potential to rock the core of Facebook’s financial foundation!
Written by FransiscaMS about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora, im agree with your opinions

“Facebook allows users to create profiles with their photos, contact information and personal information.”

Yes therefore a person could create different personality from the reality since they able to build strong image through photos, information and even walls, it’s really hard to define who’s the actual person are and they real personality, according to your own opinions which one is the main factor why people creating lots of fake id?
Written by Michelle R about 2 years ago.

I have also noticed that the amount of fake id’s my friends have is in direct relation to how much they game on facebook. Many of the games and applications on Facebook require friends to be added before the player can progress or be able to access certain items, Farmtown is an example of this; as a result many people have set up fake id’s to aid their gaming.

Why do you think Facebook has not come up with a method to get rid of these false accounts.
Written by JasonK about 2 years ago.

Its fascinating that people spend 1/3 of their leisure time online. 1/3 of leisure time sounds like a lot, but I think when we break this into 24hrs which is 350minutes per day, and a 1/3 of this is about 120 minutes (2hrs) spent online (Total leisure time, 2005).

Fake profiles were initially not more than 8% on Facebook. In order to create an account on the system, you had to have a valid school/educational college email address. So initially Facebook only allowed college students to create accounts and all these were linked to real world people, but even then some people still managed to create fake accounts (Gross & Acquisti, 2005).

When Facebook opened their system to the public in 2006, I think the number of fake profiles rose which is supported in your research to 27%. You say that out of 10 friends, 2 or 3 are using a fake ID, however if they were your real friends (and getting into a discussion about what constitutes a friend is too complicated) I’m sure people would wonder why they are doing that. Also, from my own research on Facebook, according to Facebook Statistics (2010), the average Facebook user has 130 “Friends”, however up to 50% of people surveyed in the study by Govani & Pashley (2005, p6), have accepted “friend” requests from people they have met just once and a staggering 30% accepted requests from people they have never personally met.

I agree with you that people setup fake Facebook accounts for fun. This is interesting because it seems that people like to have fun with technology too. An example of this was when some students setup a fake Facebook profile of their professor. It is interesting to read about the different motivations of why people create fake accounts, for me the one I could justify is because potential employers are searching Facebook.

Having a dummy account and then a real account would make sense. The problem though is still that if my friends tag a photo (compromising photo) of me on my real account with my real name, this would still show up in a search and the employer could see it.

Its an interesting topic and paper and well presented.

Total leisure time. (2005). Retrieved from http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=52
Written by JasonK about 2 years ago.

According to Facebook, Facebook has an active user database of more than 400 million accounts, with 35 million users updating their profile pages 60 million times daily (Facebook Statistics, 2010).

They don’t say though how many accounts are fake, just how many are active (fake and real) but according to the research by (Nyberg, 2010), up to 27% accounts are fake. This would mean that 108 million accounts are fake? This would be a huge figure if true as would the implications.

If Facebook were to release this statistic (if its true that is) then the value of their stock/company would plummet as a large percentage of their user base would be fake. Advertising companies would pull out and there would be big problems I would imagine for FB. Its not in their interest to release these numbers so they don’t.
Written by Sharlene about 2 years ago.

Hi,

An interesting topic of discussion. I was also thinking, what would be the point of setting up a fake Facebook account and then when I read your paper, I thought of course, marketing companies. Marketing companies would benefit from the research more than anyone, although when you sign up to Facebook you agree to their terms and conditions which also includes information about your information being accessible by a third party like applications.

I thought that the instances of fake profiles would not be so prevalent through facebook as you accept friendships rather than some other sites like twitter that allow you to follow anyone.
Written by TessaG about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora – I have to agree with both LauraP and KeithLaw.

I would be very interested to read any academic research on the topic of actual statistics regarding fake profiles etc.

You have however, written about a very interesting Facebook phenomenon and one that will probably change (as fashions do) in the course of the next 10 or even 5 years.

Thanks for sharing this paper
Written by Jocelyn Peucker about 2 years ago.

Woohoo… LOL

But they are not ‘fake’ accounts I am attached to a number of accounts too, in different social networks, for different reasons… but they are all real… they weren’t made just to have ‘game players’ for a game (as an example)…

I promise not to tell your mother!
Written by keithlaw about 2 years ago.

It would be interesting to see some authoritative research on Facebook users. From reading this paper and debate the claim of 400 million users may be an exaggeration if there are many people using multiple profiles. Perhaps the claim of 400 million active users should be modified to 400 million active profiles. Perhaps the Facebook market penetration is not as great as they claim.(facebook statistics, 2010)

facebook statistics. (2010). Retrieved May 3, 2010, from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
Written by laurap about 2 years ago.

A couple of these references are broken links to me, it would be good to see if there was any journal / scholarly material dealing with fake accounts. I think a good bulk of Facebook fake accounts, as someone mentioned above are purely for application purposes like Mafia Wars. A few people I know set up profiles for their pets to store photos on and because the applications for pets (Catbook, etc) are poorly designed with little real Facebook functionality, making it attractive to people to perhaps create a fake FB account instead. Not that I dispute that there are plenty of people doing it for more malicious purposes too. I just don’t feel the references have sold me on the prevalence of that activity at this point.

I feel the best method for Facebook to address this problem is first by taking away any of the “innocent” reasons people might want to create fake accounts clogging the system, probably through allowing better shared profile access for families, pets, etc. Second, by dis-allowing applications that reward fake behaviour like Zynga games and so on (through negotiation with the third party providers). Lastly FB needs to investigate and understand the malicious causes of setting up fake accounts and apply safety programs that address this properly. I see the paper refers to some methods they use today, like requesting Drivers License, and so on but from working in a similar environment I know that these are considered “reactive” safety measures and most online companies prefer proactive measures like disincentives and better indicators of identity.
Written by janette about 2 years ago.

Interesting how people feel compelled to create fake identities and SNS accounts with fake personal details. Maybe people also create fake accounts at first through fear, or to get to know the environment before deciding if/how to proceed.

Sneaky how businesses are creating fake accounts in order to promote their goods and services. They have surely done their psychology homework. I suppose if it doesn’t create business from one fake account, they can learn from their mistakes, create a new fake account and try again.

Imaging sending off your government issued identification card to Facebook who promises to destroy it – hello! You would need to be very gullible and trusting to do that.
Written by Zohara Ibrahim about 2 years ago.

According to your topic, i agree, there are so many fakes profile using someone name and other people picture. Lets you know, there are not fake of their picsture but also, they ages. According to my research, “The girl met someone on “Myspace” who claimed he was a teenager boy (the young boy was 37 years old), and they chatted online a few times, as you can see how easy for him to seek her out in real life or person just “fake” his age”. Acording to your point to know whether fake or not is not possible to see like address like you said here; ‘First of all, look for the address because most of the fake users in Facebook do not have a proper address in their info page (Nyberg, 2010). According my point, some of real profile they do want to write their address, because to protect their profile and to be safety.

The profile picture is also another way to see whether a person is fake or not. Because fake users want to amaze us, they have pictures in their profiles. yes, like i said before is not easy to look and to say there profile real or not just looking at their picsture they use and their address. for me even though the profile and the pictures are belong to her account but some of user they liar to other people not her or him, because she or him wants to protect her. the reason they do that is to protect their profile, unless you know them through webcam or meet in real person to say that profile is belong to them, usually they proof it.
Written by WendyL about 2 years ago.

Thanks Nora for your paper.
You have stated “there are people who create second identities online because they are not happy with themselves in real life.” I understand that people do create more than one account but are creating it to use for different purposes such as business or personal. As others have commented on already it seems that one of the main reasons for “fake” accounts is not necessarily unhappy with their life but to achieve bigger and better goals in Facebook games.
Does this mean that in future do social networks have to set up stricter member accounts with more identification required (that may stop people using the social network) or do they allow the “fake” accounts and just suspend accounts that they believe is fake?
Written by Barbara J about 2 years ago.

(apologies if this has been mentioned)
One of the main driving forces behind the ‘fake accounts’ are the games (Mafia Wars etc)
that depend on the number of people joining your ‘group’ in some way.
More members of your party = more gold/advancements
So a lot of people created multiple accounts so that they can boost their family members.
Not much FB can really do about that if you can just join with a free email account =)
Written by Tama Leaver about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora,

An interesting paper – I wonder if in this context the word ‘fake’ is stretched to include a little too much, in the same way that Facebook itself stretches ‘friend’ to include any form of social connection? So much of our identity on the web used to be based on chosen names, or handles, not our actual names, that Facebook’s insistence on ‘real’ identity is quite a landmark moment, especially for more than 400 million users. As a term ‘fake’ tells us that using our actual full name is the norm, but is that really a good thing for most users? I think the list of legitimate reasons to want to both use Facebook and to distance that from your offline identity are plentiful and I suspect there’s a lot more to ‘fake’ Facebook identities than meets the eye. Thanks for the great provocation to think this through further.

- Tama
Written by Barbara J about 2 years ago.

Sorry Jocelyn… your ‘friend’ mintie keeps two fake accounts. Main account is for family, the others are to hide what I really get up to from my mother.

~ Barb. (aka. mintie)
Written by Joshua Atlee about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora,

Your paper is good but there is not enough evidence to confirm the numbers of fake accounts that you say Facebook have and also do you know how many 3rd world war countries don’t even have a PC in every home, the figures shown here cannot be correct, fake accounts happen everywhere eBay, Forums everywhere and it’s not due to not being happy with yourself, you cannot generalise that to everybody because if I were to relate this back to my paper regarding MMORPG’s that people setup multiple accounts so that they have different flavored characters and also can be known as two named players, it doesn’t mean they are fake it just means that web 2.0 technology these days and the way we communicate in a virtual space has given us many powerful tools to use. Also people use different identities to escape from certain crowds which does not cause any harm.

I myself have used many game names and alias’s to those names but it does not mean I’m fake, Either I want to be left alone or i feel like being someone else in the game which gives the game creativity, Why do you need to know who I am online? to enjoy a game if i don’t use my correct identity?
Written by Radek_Valenta about 2 years ago.

“The only way to ensure your identity is not stolen is not to advertise your information.”

Hmm interesting, so there is actually no way how create account that is not a fake and protect your identity in the same time.
Written by Richie_M about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora, I think this is an interesting paper.
I tend to agree with some of the other comments in that statistically the percentages that you have stated don’t seem to add up, of course I can not be certain and would gladly read any papers that may prove me wrong.
Something I found quite interesting is your mention of business checking up prior to hiring and of parents checking up on their children.
With the privacy settings that are provided by Facebook, it seems silly that more people don’t utilise them.
Perhaps it is a matter of new users not being aware of the settings.
Undoubtfully it would be interesting to find out of Facebook users, how many actually use some sort of privacy setting to protect their personal information.
Good paper Nora, I enjoyed it.
Written by Richie_M about 2 years ago.

That is a very interesting point you make Jordannaepp.
As businesses are using our personal information that they acquire from SNS such as Facebook for promotional purposes, I would not be surprised if there are a number of people that create a secondary account, just like one would with email, in order to avoid unnecessary correspondence and therefore have a less interrupted, more enjoyable experience online in general.
Written by Keith Law about 2 years ago.

“For instance using of fake name does not necessary mean that the whole account is fake, it may just mean that the user don’t want have identity stolen. I think we can classify a fake account as an account created purposely to harm somebody else.”

I think your definition is too narrow. I would consider an account fake whenever the details are not substantially true. A pseudo name should be clearly indicated and what purpose can there be for having false data other than suspicious motives. The only way to ensure your identity is not stolen is not to advertise your information.

If the level of “fake accounts” are as substantial as this paper implies then the whole of Facebook is devalued and it is likely to be a passing fad. How can you trust any communication if indeed a quarter of accounts are false?
Written by Jarrad Long about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora

I’m not convinced Nyberg is a reliable reference: 400 million is only about 6% of the world’s population (not 37%), and I’d like to know where he got the figure of 27% of all Facebook accounts being fake (there was no reference to a source in his article).

I’m also not sure that the use of fake names is increasing – is there data to support that? I’m actually of the opinion that it’s decreasing, due to the influence of Facebook and sites like it that don’t allow fake profiles, but I’m willing to be proven wrong!
Written by Keith Law about 2 years ago.

“Displaying 1 – 10 of 161 people who match “Keith Law”.”

Amazing and I’m not one of them.
Written by li ying about 2 years ago.

‘the few reasons why people do this; it can be because of shallow relationships, for example, lovers testing and teasing each other. The other reasons could be because the person wants to take revenge, or that person likes to be stupid and fool around (Dababneh, 2008).

I can relate your paper with my friends who created fake facebook account just to impress their ex girlfriends. One of them wants to take revenge because she dumped him halfway in a relationship. Also, one of my friend found two fake accounts of themself in facebook. She is a very pretty girl and people used her identity to attract users to accept their friend request.
Written by Jordannaepp about 2 years ago.

I have 2 email accounts which I use for separate purposes, 1 for personal correspondence and the other for spam or newsletters. Perhaps some people use their Facebook accounts in the same way? Now that FB is rife with adverts and games (damn you farmville!), it may be possible some people are just trying to keep their personal online-life free from unwanted information. They are not trying to be misleading or manipulative, they just want to lead a simple, quiet virtual existence.
Its interesting to see that business are using social networking sites for promotion. It kind of defeats the meaning of ‘social networking’; who wants to mix business with pleasure?
Now if I could only find out how to turn off those annoying farmville updates….
Written by Louise about 2 years ago.

At least one person I am friends with has been unable to register a Facebook with his name. Rather than prove that he indeed has that name, he just used a different name and then went through the arduous task of explaining to everyone that no, he hasn’t changed his name.

I’m wondering what constitutes a blacklisted name. There were not one, but two Michael Jacksons in my highschool and undoubtedly hundreds of people with the same name. Similarly, Boyle isn’t an uncommon surname and it’s fair to assume that there would be several Susan Boyles in the world. As you mentioned in your paper, some people may have problems being locked out from Facebook simply because a Facebook maintainer decided their account was fake.
Written by Radek_Valenta about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora
I think we have to distinguish what is a what is not a fake account. For instance using of fake name does not necessary mean that the whole account is fake, it may just mean that the user don’t want have identity stolen. I think we can classify a fake account as an account created purposely to harm somebody else. Another question is how can administrators of SNS avoid creations of fake accounts, I think its impossible.
Written by Jocelyn Peucker about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora

Really interesting paper, and an eye opener. Fortunately, out of my current ‘friends’ on Facebook (FB), I can almost guarantee that there are no fake accounts amongst them. At least I’m hoping so, for I know my contacts in the real-offline world or I have met them ‘virtually’ through studying at uni. Whilst I was reading about the ‘fake’ accounts, it reminded me of discussions last SP of the Mixi Social Networking application used in Japan, where it is unlikely that anyone uses their real names, but that must have a ‘real’ Japan based email address, and membership is only by “invitation” (kirin, 2009). Unfortunately, I could not find the academic reference to further back this up.

For myself, I’ve written a paper on social networking in organisations. Due to the type of organisation I’ve written about, and after reading so many of the papers written on the negatives and privacy issues of FB, FB is not likely to be the perfect software for this organisation (Peucker, 2010).

I enjoyed reading this paper, thank you.

Cheers
Jocelyn

References

kirin. (2009). Why Facebook is not popular in Japan? Tokyo Kawaii, etc Retrieved May 05, 2010, from http://tokyokawaiietc.com/archives/2407

Peucker, J. (2010). The Future Net-oree: The Scouting Convergence to Online Collaborations and Networks. Retrieved May 05, 2010, from http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/the-future-net-oree-the-scouting-convergence-to-online-collaborations-and-networks/
Written by waisitham about 2 years ago.

When comes to my mind the topic of your paper, it makes me associated the cyber stalking with fake identity and account on social networking sites. Having second identity or stalking behavior is prevalent in social networking sites. Also, the tendency of creating face account is increasing due to the trend for Facebook means that people has no longer value social networking sites as the medium for communicating and socializing with friends, family and acquaintances living apart.

In your opinion, what do you think the reasons can lead to the increased number of fake accounts on Facebook? In my opinion, stalking can be one of the main reasons causes people create a false identity on Facebook to aim at their target groups of people. Because the Internet brings convenient for stalking due to easy for getting intimate information in people’s profile on social networking sites. Even the scholars, Paullet, Rota and Swan (2009) agree the Internet make it easy for a cyber stalker to target a victim. If I would like to choose you as the stalking target, I am definitely not going to use my real online identity. The presence of social networking sites provides friendly-stalker tool that makes stalking behavior becoming a norm in virtual world. As in my paper has mentioned that casual stalking is socially acceptable and typical.

You have several of interesting perspectives on why people want to create a false account and how people use the fake identity on social networking site, Facebook. I agree the youth in these days are likely to give a prank on their friends or acquaintances for the sake of fun. Therefore, teenagers create fake account for their prank purpose.

Reference:
Paullet, K. L., Rota, D. R., & Swan, T. T. (2009). Cyberstalking: An exploratory study of students at a Mid-Atlantic University. Issues in Information Systems, X(2), 640-649, retrieved May 4, 2010, from http://www.iacis.org/iis/2009_iis/pdf/P2009_1212.pdf
Written by Ernesthojilla about 2 years ago.

Interesting paper! I agree with fake accounts, fake identity when it comes to social networking sites specially facebook. A Lot of my friends created an account name based from their stage name or what we called a second name. This is because they are widely known as someone else “A.K.A”. people used AKA to identify them or fully restrict their own real name for privacy reasons.

Your paper says “Even parents join Facebook so a lot of teenagers like to use fake names so that their parents will not be able to find them there.”

This is actually true according to my own experience. I knew few parents wanting to view & know what’s happening to their children, so creating a fake account with a different name can give them a full access of what is happening specially teenagers nowadays, then they can monitor what activities they are up to. ( bad or good etc.)

You are right about teenagers changing or using facebook account name for their own personal privacy!

Thanks for this!
Written by Chris K about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora,

Very interesting paper! I think while lloking on identity that a high number of facebook accounts could be considered as fake simply by the fact that people present themselves wrong and they create an identity which is actually more a desire or wish or how they want to recognised by others.

Chris
Written by KayeE about 2 years ago.

Interesting paper…..when I first read your paper I didn’t really understand why people would want to set up a fake account on Facebook. So I have been asking around and I have been surprised by what I have found out. One of my friends is an avid Farmville fan and recently created 17 other accounts so that she could upgrade her farm! I was amazed that anyone would have the time or the inclination to do such a thing! I was also talking to a friend recently and she has deliberately encouraged her children to lie when setting up their Facebook account. E.g. they give a false surname – she said that she is trying to protect them from online predators. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the years to come….whether we will all develop an innate mistrust of anything that we see online.
Written by keithlaw about 2 years ago.

You say: “Facebook has reached a level where the user base is roughly estimated to cover around 37% of the total world population and along with this huge user base, the fake user base has risen to 27% of the total Facebook users (Nyberg, 2010).”

I have debated this point elsewhere but Facebook’s claimed 400 Million active users (facebook statistics, 2010) is not around 37% of the world population but less than 7%. What you mean by “roughly estimated to cover around 37% of the total world population” needs to be clarified or amended. (37% is approximately 2.4 billion while there are only 1.8 billion Internet Users).
See this website for more detailed information: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

I had a look at your source reference which clearly states: ” Facebook use in current time is really very huge and has reached a level where the user base is roughly estimated to cover around 37 % of the total world population. Along with this huge user base the fake user base also has risen to an unexpected level of 27% of the total Facebook users. That means if you get 10 friendship requests a day then out of that 10 only 7 or 8 are real people and rest 2 or 3 fake.” (Nyberg, 2010).
The first claim is either deliberately misleading or a gross error. It casts doubts on the second claim. The only defence I can see is in the interpretation of the word ‘cover’ but is a feeble defence.
“Sture is an Online Marketing Coach. His passion in life is to create value for others with his ultimate Business Model that supports him to create value for others. Business for Life” (Nyberg, 2010). A salesman but clearly not a statistician!

I actually enjoyed your paper and it wasn’t until the second read through that this claim jumped out from page.
Written by BromwichR about 2 years ago.

Intersting perspective on how social sites like facebook are “dealing” with the issue of non-genuine accounts and hwy people are establishing them. Perhaps it is one way of dealing with online privacy issues and guarding against possible theft of or long term retention of information by third parties.
Written by Michael N about 2 years ago.

I find it interesting that you stated finding out a fake Facebook account is by putting an address. I assume you mean the physical address where someone lives, not the URL? The motivations for creating these accounts would be great for a second paper or research because one question is why bother? There may be many reasons including wanting attention or being kicked out of a group but still wanting to be involved, as happens on virtual community forums and chat lines. Your paper has opened up many more questions to consider so well done.
Written by Victoria about 2 years ago.

Its certainly an interesting topic as to why a person would create a fake facebook profile. It is a lot of effort to maintain a facebook page, so to make a page based on a lie must mean that the person is severly lacking in self confidence. Maybe the users of these pages are content to hide behind a false public image. Living in an alterantive reality that helps them to escape their problems for a short time. In my opinion this kind of identity deception is not damaging. In my paper I discuss destructive forms of online identity deception. Do you think false facebook profiles are truly detremental to society overall?
Well Done
Victoria Hainsworth

Here is the link to my paper:

http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/trust-in-reality-%e2%80%93-why-virtual-identity-deception-can-never-be-as-destructive-as-deception-in-the-real-world/
Written by ZPlester about 2 years ago.

27% of facebook users are fake? Holy mackerel! I love the way you talk about the reasons behind fake accounts such as “being whom they have always wanted to be”, It ties in nicely on my ‘one to many’ theory from my article, that people are creating more than one public identity and living out different parts of themselves. For some reason I hadn’t even considered the way people border work and private lives online as you mentioned about perspective employers. I have heard that many employers will check Facebook before hiring these days. I don’t think it should be the core of the decision but it may give them a better idea so I can understand how some may consider hiding that identity. I’m definitely gonna think on that some more. I think i’m gonna have to look into Nyberg and Katz some more, I’m liking the way they think. Really enjoyed reading your article, it’s given me some more ideas on creating identity.
Written by KiYanC about 2 years ago.

Hi Nora, thanks for your paper. It provides some interesting points about identity on Facebook.
It is pretty interesting to see the increase of people creating fake accounts on Facebook as the orginal idea of Facebook is to look and meet the people who we already know in real life. The reasons you mentioned in the article are very nice. I think the reasons you pointed out that people create fake account because they do not like their real “self” is interesting. I think rather than feeling not good for their real identities, creating fake idenitities is more likely because they want to fit into the online communities. In an example from Lisa Nakamura’s reasearch on Asian themed online forum, she found that web users would use pictures, self-description and names to create idenities that is competely different with their real idenities. Web users do this as they do not want others stereotype on them because of their race and gender (Nakamura, 2002, p.48). I think it may be the same reason why people stealing other people’s picture for their identities on Facebook, it is because they want to be accepted in the online communities and they know there are certain “standard” of online presentations, which their real identity do not match. As a result, they create fake accounts to make friends on Facebook.
I do agree that this behavior would hurt other users who build up relationship with the fake idenities and it could probably lead to criminal act like using Facebook to commit sex assult in real life.

Reference:
Nakamura, L. (2002). Head- hunting on the internet: identity tourism, avatars, and racial passing in textual and graphic chat spaces In L. Nakamura (Ed.), Cybertypes: race, ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. (pp. 31-60). New York: Routledge.