(image by Karen Arnold)
…your profile picture is of an attractive young woman wearing a bikini.
…you put your cell phone number on your profile page
…you have thousands of likes on Facebook and tag every photo 100 or more times
…but you don’t have any local friends
…you claim to be an executive of a major corporation on LinkedIn but don’t have a premium account
–your LinkedIn profile has a lower case first and last name, a minimally filled out profile and you work for a company with a generic name
…you have less than 50 connections on LinkedIn
…but you follow 2,001 people on Twitter (Twitter rules prohibit following more than 2,000 people until 2,000 people follow you)
…your Twitter bio is empty
…your Twitter URL has nothing to do with the first and last name on your profile.
(A sockpuppet is a false online identity used to deceive or spam other social media users.)
On the other hand, if you’re a real person who wants to avoid the spammers and scammers who are trying to connect, follow or friend you, here are some tools that may help:
- These two tools will identify fake followers on Twitter, Fake Follower Check and TwitBlock.
- Google image search enables you to search for images with another image. That will enable you to identify if the same image has been used for multiple profiles with different names.
- TinEye Reverse Image Search will advise where an image came from and how it is being used.
- You can get tips and updates from the SPAMfighter Facebook community page.
(image by mzacha)
