Saturday, March 19, 2016

Facebook is watching and tracking you more than you probably realize.





...Scammers have found a simple way to fly under the radar during the early phases of their operation. The story they originally post to Facebook has nothing dangerous about it. It's just a regular story that anyone might post. That was the warning from one local Better Business Bureau last year.

Only after the post gets a certain number of likes and shares does the scammer edit it and add something malicious. They might start promoting products or sell the page information in an attempt to get credit card data. In fact, if you go back through your history of liked posts, you might find that some of them have changed to something you wouldn't have liked in a million years....

Posts that should give you pause

One popular type of story is the emotional one. You've definitely seen the posts showing rescue animals and asking you to like if you think they're cute....

What about brain-teaser posts, such as the ones that have you like or share if you can read the words backwards or solve a tricky math problem? Yep, those are often like-farm posts, too.

It isn't just posts either; it can also be pages. A scammer might set up a page for "I love puppies" or what appears to be a worthy company or organization. It puts up enough content to get a lot of likes, then switches the content to spam and scams. Once you've liked the page, everything new the scammers put up goes on your News Feed and, in some cases, your friends' feeds as well.

How to avoid like-farming

Your best bet to avoid like-farming is to be very judicious about what you like and share on Facebook. Don't just reflexively click "like" on everything. Take a look at where the post is coming from. If it's from someone you don't recognize, it could be a friend of a friend or it could be a complete stranger. It would be good to find out....
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