As part of our portfolio, we help clients to all needs on their social media channels, in Greece, Germany and Spain. The change in social media is rapid and an extreme raise of fake news, hate speech and other extremist behavior has happened. One of the reasons is the big amount of fake profiles without verification that the platforms allow to be created, without any verification. This also affects the most powerful tool of Facebook, the Groups.
Nowadays, it is more important than ever to know who is moderating and why, to detect misleading groups.
Based on our experience, we give you 4 tips on how to identify manipulated pages & groups that spread fake news or are hiding their real motives. There is no 100% solution to this, as social media platforms still allow non-verified user profiles, but with our tips you can built your own opinion based on facts.
The best place to look are the admin pages of the page or group.
Where to find them in a group?
You find them at the about button and members button marked as Admin.
Where to find them in the page?
You find them in the about section, below the Story.
If nobody appears, transparency is missing. Then look at the “Impressum/About us” area where you should will find a link to an such a page or at least written legal information of a person responsible.
Check their profiles!
Are they “real persons” or is somebody hiding behind these profiles? Does the name match the url of their profile? Look if everything fits.
In many cases people have almost empty profiles or have very limited content available to non-friends, for different reasons. There must be at least a few photos which you can see. Click on them and see the reactions. Do they have likes or any comment? Check them out, click on them, where to they lead?
It is not a rule but an empty profile with a name that is not a name is not a good sign!
BE AWARE! There are websites that create profile photos so realistic that are very convincing. These are called “deep fakes” and are getting harder and harder to detect!
Who is moderating the group? Where does he/she comes from? Are they related with the cause of the group?
There are many groups where the profile of the admins that might look ok but the friends & likes in the content come from different origin. An admin should have an alive profile, with real material and social interaction. Look at the friends and likes on the page. And if they are all fake, then the group is fake too and has a hidden agenda.
How to trace friends if they are hidden from the setting of the profile?
You can still find them: Just click on the reactions (likes, hearts etc) of a photo and a list of the people that interacted will appear. These are the friends. Click on them and check out in the same way as before. Pay attention & protect your privacy unnecessary exposure.
