Facebook is taking measures to weed out spammers by blocking fake "likes" delivered in exchange for a fee.
Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, has a massive network of more than 1.3 billion members and it is essential that it maintains the integrity of the site. The company has constantly worked toward reducing spammy activities on its site and has upped the battle against fake likes. This time around, the social networking giant is targeting those who promise thousands of "likes" for a fee.
In an official blog post on Friday, Facebook's site integrity engineer Matt Jones said the company has won nearly $2 billion in legal judgments against spammers and continues to fight the illicit activities on the site. As a preventive measure, Facebook limits "likes" per account and the company takes extreme measures when the "like" activity gets abnormally high.
"We write rules and use machine learning to catch suspicious behavior that sticks out," Jones wrote. "When we catch fraudulent activity, we work to counter and prevent it, including blocking accounts and removing fake likes all at once. As our tools have become more sophisticated, we've contributed some of our spam-fighting technology to the academic community as well, in hopes of helping other companies combat similar problems. We want to help block spam no matter where it spreads."
The company has a history of fending off the bad guys from its site. In April, the company targeted three broad categories to make its News Feed much cleaner and authentic. Facebook trimmed down on "like-baiting" and frequently circulated content as well as spammy links on the site.
Spammers promising to deliver fake "likes" usually do it through fake accounts and in some cases, hack into real accounts. Such likes do not help businesses achieve their business goals as they come with zero returns. The company also asks users to avoid clicking on suspicious links or third party sites offering unique Facebook features, such as color changing app.
