Fake Content on Social Media

Social media has taken the world by storm. With platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram attracting millions of users daily since their development. People loved the ability to personalize their pages to fit their personal needs. But with the growing success of these media giants, there will always be people taking advantage of their individuality and personal features to create marketing or personal gain. These are the worst type of people because they're the reason for the random friend requests, fake advertisements, popups, and fake profiles we fall for (which is called "phishing" or getting "cat fished", but I'll talk about that later) that annoy us so much.

I personally like to call these people "internet warriors", a term normally associated with internet bullies, but I feel like there are many similarities between the two. For instance, internet bullies hide behind their computers in search of inferior victims to fall for their ridicule and humiliation, and the people creating this fake content are doing much of the same, they still are trying to make the other person look bad, whether that's by making them fall for their fake profile or their totally illegitimate advertisement that could potentially lose you your money and dignity. Just terrible I know.

Bob Hoffman, a veteran ad executive, industry critic, and author of the blog the Ad Contrarian, said "I can think of nothing that has done more harm to the Internet than ad tech". How often people fall victim to the scams placed variously all over our favourite websites. Bob continues to say "Nobody knows the exact number, but probably about 50% of what your spending online is being stolen from you." Although speculation, he isn't that far off. The FBI reported that just in the third quarter of 2009, internet thieves have stolen more than $25 million over the internet alone. That number most likely has only gone up since then with greater technology being invented every year.(David,March)

With this generation spending more and more time using the internet and social media it is important that people know that not everything you read or see is true. Over the course of this blog, my colleagues and I will be discussing many different topics concerning fake content on the internet. We will go over the groups of people most targeted by fake content, how to spot "fake" content, fake content vs. real and how to distinguish between the two, how fake content spreads over the internet, the effects of fake views, fake content on facebook and the growing popularity of "phishing". (n.d)

David N(March) Cyber Crooks Leave Traditional Bank Robbers in the Dust Retrieved from  http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/david-nelson/

Ben E, Michael R, David K &Joshua B(n.d) Marketers thought the Web would allow perfectly targeted ads.Hasn’t worked out that way. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-click-fraud/