Facebook raises 1.6 billion euros in lawsuits against ‘like fraudsters’

By conducting lawsuits against fraudsters and spammers, Facebook has managed to raise almost 2 billion dollars, converted almost 1.6 billion euros. The social networking site says it is mainly affected by so-called ‘fake likes’; likes not posted by real people.

With a blog post about its activities to tackle fraud and spam, Facebook hopes to send a signal; the company states that it tackles fraudsters with legal measures if necessary; an amount of almost 2 billion dollars has now been raised by conducting lawsuits. Facebook did not disclose exactly how many lawsuits have been filed and won.

Fraud on the social networking site mainly focuses on fake likes. For example, businesses can buy likes for their business page on Facebook from agencies that have them posted by accounts of non-existent individuals. Accounts are also used to spam for companies on the social network; according to Facebook, accounts of real people are sometimes hacked for this.

According to Facebook, a lot has been invested in anti-spam technology in recent years. Like-spammers are discovered via algorithms and measures are taken such as blocking accounts or reducing the number of likes that can be placed with an account. The algorithms developed would also have been made available to scientists. However, the company behind the social networking site does not provide many details about this.

Soon it will be prohibited for companies to organize giveaways where users have a chance to win prizes in exchange for a like. The measures should ensure that likes are ‘real’. Facebook again points out in its blog post that companies should “focus on their business activities” instead of as many likes as possible. Promotion of company pages via likes or shares, which then appear in the timeline with friends, is a thorn in the side of many users.