As the popularity of Facebook grew so did the importance most people give to “Likes”. They pretty much represent the social-proof currency of the web these days (i.e., the more “Likes” you or your fan page has, the more popular you must be). The consequence is an obvious one: people started finding ways to generate fake “Likes”.
No one seemed to care that much until this week, when Facebook announced it will start filtering those fake likes. Here’s a quote from an article on All Things D:
Facebook is a ginormous site whose primary currency is “Likes.” So, of course, it has a counterfeit “Like” problem.Now Mark Zuckerberg and company say they’ve figured out how to crack down on zombie “Likes,” via “automated efforts” that will zap the bogus ones.A blog post announcing the move says that most people won’t notice the change, because “on average, less than 1% of likes on any given Page will be removed.”But I bet that some big brands and/or personalities that have many millions of “Likes” may see their numbers chopped more dramatically.
I don’t think accounts with fake “Likes” will get suspended though. If this was the case it would become too easy to sabotage the fan page of a competitor, for instance.
Anyway it will be interesting to keep track of the big brands to see which are the ones with the highest percentage of fake “Likes”.
