4 ms·

I would much rather have an easy way to tell if someone is a "real" person, and Facebook gives me that. How does Facebook give you that, exactly?

portman 16y ago
Several ways, none of which is individually full-proof, but taken together they are a very good indicator: - Does the user have a profile photo, or is it the default user icon? - How many friends does the user have? (Generally 0, 1, or 2 is highly suspicious) - Does the user have a real name? [Edit: we have a blacklist of fake names.]
- zalew 16y ago
  Does the user have a real name? I'm very curious how do you believe you can check that.
- DeusExMachina 16y ago
  They can be an indicator, but do you check every subscription? Are you going to refuse subscription telling people "sorry, you don't have enough friends"? Here is a very quick experiment I made: - Get the name of one of your contact and the surname of another one and subscribe with that. - Take the picture of a random girl on the internet that looks real, put a copy and paste famous quote in the description like "it will not rain forever". - Subscribe to a couple of groups or pages with the word "sex" in them. Bang, hundred of friends in a couple of days, and the profile now seems legit. Still harder than generating fake profiles automatically, but I think that with a little bit of effort this can be automated too. There are also companies that will give you some hundred of friends for a fee.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
qq66 16y ago
Most people don't go to the trouble of registering a fake Facebook account to sign up for a random web service. If you want to be even more strict, you can look for people with at least 3 friends -- most real people have more than 10 friends, and very few people with a fake account will register 4.
- gallerytungsten 16y ago
  Not true. It's easy to find spam accounts with dozens of friends. Try searching on openbook.com with a mildly naughty term, then click through to some of the result profiles. You'll find that they link to porn sites. Example: http://youropenbook.org/?q=panties&gender=female http://youropenbook.org/?q=panties&gender=female

portman 16y ago

Several ways, none of which is individually full-proof, but taken together they are a very good indicator: - Does the user have a profile photo, or is it the default user icon? - How many friends does the user have? (Generally 0, 1, or 2 is highly suspicious) - Does the user have a real name? [Edit: we have a blacklist of fake names.]

zalew 16y ago
Does the user have a real name? I'm very curious how do you believe you can check that.
DeusExMachina 16y ago
They can be an indicator, but do you check every subscription? Are you going to refuse subscription telling people "sorry, you don't have enough friends"? Here is a very quick experiment I made: - Get the name of one of your contact and the surname of another one and subscribe with that. - Take the picture of a random girl on the internet that looks real, put a copy and paste famous quote in the description like "it will not rain forever". - Subscribe to a couple of groups or pages with the word "sex" in them. Bang, hundred of friends in a couple of days, and the profile now seems legit. Still harder than generating fake profiles automatically, but I think that with a little bit of effort this can be automated too. There are also companies that will give you some hundred of friends for a fee.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

qq66 16y ago

Most people don't go to the trouble of registering a fake Facebook account to sign up for a random web service. If you want to be even more strict, you can look for people with at least 3 friends -- most real people have more than 10 friends, and very few people with a fake account will register 4.

gallerytungsten 16y ago
Not true. It's easy to find spam accounts with dozens of friends. Try searching on openbook.com with a mildly naughty term, then click through to some of the result profiles. You'll find that they link to porn sites. Example: http://youropenbook.org/?q=panties&gender=female http://youropenbook.org/?q=panties&gender=female