When you click “like” for a cause in Facebook, you may be helping scammers make money. People buy and sell fan pages. That “like” that you clicked gives whoever owns the page more access to your Facebook feed; the more feeds the page can access, the more money it’s worth.

Structure of a Facebook scam

1. A page is created.
2. This page put out a constant stream of heart wrenching and/or mildly amusing images that are shared publicly with a call to action to click, share or comment.
3. These posts are initially shared by a big group of people all in the same network who have all built up their edge rank over a period of time that then results in the posts eventually leaking into the newsfeeds of real-life accounts.
4. These people share, like or comment which then spreads.
5. Eventually a friend of yours hits that little thumbs up button
6. It’s in your newsfeed.

And within 3 days a post like this one has 70,000 likes, and someone somewhere is about to make a nice little profit by selling the page to a business wanting some quick wins.

The buyer then changes some of the page details. BAM! Instant fanpage with a big following, lots of likes and an in depth edge rank, capable of pushing out content to a pre-built list of thousands of Facebook users. (edit: Page name cannot be altered after 200 likes, just details of the page).

So, that’s it. I’m sure you knew it already, but these things are dodgy. Where there is profit to be made, there will be people who will figure out a way to game the system. This is one of the games. Best way to stop this stuff from occurring is to not promote this rubbish.

Pro tip: If you do see a post about sick kids with rare cancer who lost all their family to a horrible house fire and if you don’t like it then 100 more children will get cancer from terrorists – it’s not real. Don’t click on it.

Share this post within 10 seconds if you agree!

Don’t share and you will get AIDs.

via All About Those Facebook ‘Like’ Scam Posts | Daylan Does.