Facebook announced in a blog post this week that it has made “big strides” in its fight against fake likes over the past six months, tripling the number of fake likes it has detected and blocked before they’ve even reached a Page. In October of last year, the site shared its strategy for stopping fraudulent activity and gave users tips for avoiding potential privacy problems.

Since that October announcement, Facebook says it has made improvements to its pattern recognition technology, which helps the site track suspicious activity to specific accounts. This has helped Facebook stop “major exchanges” of spammy behavior originating from large-scale click farms and fake accounts. In addition to removing fake likes from Pages, Facebook now also notifies Page administrators when it has done so to “help them learn how to garner authentic fans.” According to Facebook, it has issued this notification to 200,000 Pages just since March.

Less fake likes are a good thing for all users, but Facebook is not blocking them out of the goodness of its heart. Instead, the site’s increased vigilance is all about helping businesses meet their bottom lines.

“Businesses won’t achieve results and could end up doing less business on Facebook if the people they’re connected to aren’t real,” the site said in its explanation for why it cares about fake likes. “It’s in our best interest to make sure that interactions are authentic.”

Still, even if the spam-fighting is intended to help businesses, a cleaner and more efficient Facebook ultimately benefits everyone.

Recommended Resources

BitDefender Traffic Light is a free cross-browser add-on that intercepts, processes and filters all Web traffic, blocking any malicious content and taking browser security to new levels.

Blur is the first all-in-one solution that protects your passwords, payments, and privacy. It gives power back to people making it simple to choose what amount of their personal information they are OK providing to any website: no matter a) what they are doing- surfing, creating a new account, or shopping, or b) what device they are using – mobile phone, browser or tablet.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!