[funtober]

Some scammers on Facebook have seized on to my aunt's name and image as the front for their operations. As family, they friend us from fake accounts on at least a weekly basis. Despite reporting these fake accounts more than 100 times, I got a new one today. They ask me for feedback every time I report an account. They are not getting positive reviews. Based on this experience, I'm not optimistic in their abilities.

[devrandomguy]

I should start photoshopping a fake scar onto my face in profile pics, so that I have a chance to be believed when I cry "Doppleganger!" with no scar on my real face.

I think a small lighting bolt on the forehead would look dashing.

[Natsu]

I've heard reports that a non-trivial percentage of their accounts are fake. I share your lack of optimism, though I also wonder how hard they've really tried until now.

[ams6110]

Why should we believe they're trying now?

[CamperBob2]

There are persistent rumors that Zuckerberg wants to get into national politics. The spin will ramp up to neutron-star velocities when that happens. It's probably safe to stop believing anything they say, starting right about now.

[pharrlax]

He is literally doing a whistlestop tour around America right now, replete with bizarrely folksy essays laced with nakedly political rhetoric. Not so much a rumor as an impression he appears to be intentionally cultivating

[kbenson]

Well, Trump has shown that the populace is accepting of businessmen as leaders. I'm sure if the rumors are true Zuckerberg won't be the last to think they can parlay success and fame into political power, and he wasn't the first (Reagon comes to mind).

[elevenfist]

Reagan was an actor, not a businessman. He did shill though.

Zuckerberg is waking up to how easily manipulable the portion of Americans who voted for Trump are. It's too easy. Just look at the republican response to sb18 in CA. The counseling association was suppossed to be working on an initiative to help but I'm starting to worry.

[stupidhn]

Trump is about American nationalism, and he resonated with the poorer parts of the country by talking about making America great again. He's also "old school". Zuckerberg is in most ways the opposite.

[stupidhn]

There are persistent rumors that Zuckerberg wants to get into national politics.

First,let me say that I respect Zuckerberg and what he's accomplished. But...

Does middle America care what "the Facebook guy" thinks? This seems like more SV delusion. The guy is literally running Big Brother.

[bigbugbag]

> It's probably safe to stop believing anything they say, starting right about now.

It was safe to stop believing anything they say after facebook got caught neck deep in wrongdoings and apologized for the first time. IIRC this was circa early 2004 or late 2003 and it's been downhill from there.

[disgruntledphd2]

Facebook was founded in February 2004, so they probably didn't do much bad stuff in 2003.

[jessaustin]

Haha I started at least five years ago, the fourteenth time I heard someone complaining about automatically-changed FB privacy settings. Fool me thirteen times... Thus I wasn't surprised by #JeSuisCharlie or the recent wall-building kerfuffle.

[sandworm101]

I've got a similar problem with my own face. Scammers take public information from bar associations (I'm a lawyer) and build fake profiles using photos from firm websites. As I don't have any facebook account myself, finding and reporting these is a real difficulty. Most large law firms have someone dedicated to protecting the firm's name on social media but small firms just don't have the time.

FYI, don't believe anything said by a "lawyer" on facebook. We don't ever start communications that way. Visit the local bar association's website and check the lawyer's real contact info before saying anything.

[mirimir]

It sounds like they're using your name, not just your face. Or are they just creating plausible fake lawyers? And what's the game? I can imagine that they're soliciting "customers", who they'll go on to dupe and rip off.

I do like your profile, by the way. It sounds like the lawyer-expert dynamic to me.

[sandworm101]

They send threatening messages to people that include links and data from firm/bar websites to make it seem as if it comes from a real lawyer. In extreme cases they setup entirely fake websites with data harvested from legit law firms.

No lawyer will send a threat via facebook. And no lawyer will ever demand a payment via bitcoin or gift cards.

[mirimir]

I am still too naive :(

So they scam people into "settling" fake litigation. Over Facebook. And many people, who of course don't have much of a clue, fall for it. Amazing. But some of them, frightened and angry, contact your firm.

In some other world, where GnuPG had become widely used, legal communications would be signed, and people could just check signatures. That wouldn't help for fake websites, however.

[15155]

> Most large law firms have someone dedicated to protecting the firm's name on social media

Which, in cases of fraud or scams, is a fine effort - in the cases of SLAPPs, not so much.

[sandworm101]

Law firms arent coke or pepsi. They generally dont care about public opinion. Only client opinion matters. What they dont want to see is thier name being used for criminal activity. But being seen as dark and scary isnt always a bad thing (see Wolfram & Heart).