Would you Give Your Fake Friend up to the Facebook Police?
Facebook is in a war. They're not in a war against other social networks however. They're in a war against the fakers. It was revealed earlier this year by Facebook itself, that 8.7% of its users are fake.
That's bad news for them as they look to increase revenue. There have already been stories of advertisers spending big bucks and only attracting a tribe of fakes, whileresearch has shown that 40% of mobile ad clicks on the site aren't real either.
Facebook, however, is enlisting an unlikely ally in this battle however - you.
That's right. They're asking you to report anyone in your friends list that you know to be using a pseudonym. Check out the screenshot below of the new Facebook fakers reporting screen.
Here's the official word from Facebook on this new strategy:
We are always looking to gauge how people use Facebook and represent themselves to better design our product and systems. We are showing people information that their friends have made available to them and we indicate to the person taking the survey that their response will be anonymous to ensure them that we are not sharing their data with anyone and only looking to understand the results in an aggregate sense. Additionally, it is important to understand that we will not be using this data for enforcement actions.
What do you think? Are there valid reasons to use a pseudonym on Facebook? Would you ever snitch on a friend for not using their real name?
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