There are many variations of this black hat SEO method.
A photo of a sick child, a battered woman, a cancer victim (Click Like if you want to see a cure for cancer in your lifetime).
A photo of Satan (Click Like if you'd like to see the devil be cast into hell. If you love the devil, just keep on scrolling.).
A photo of a baby, with the message "Like if you agree babies are a gift from God."
A photo of an alleged homeless military veteran with the message "Let's Find 1 Million People Who Really Support Our Severely Injured Veterans's photo. ♥ "Thank you for seeing me as a Veteran and not a homeless Man". ♥
"Click LIKE if your remember this movie" accompanied by a still from the film.
"Do You LOVE Your Dad? -- Click Like for YES. If no, just ignore."
You've seen ton of these, I'm sure.
It's similar to all the fake veterans charities who raise tons of money from people who support the troops -- but none of the money is used to help veterans, it all goes to make the charity executives rich.
They pull on your heartstrings. They appeal to normal emotions. They seem to be so innocent and noble. But they're filth. They're garbage. They're cynical gimmicks, preying on your conscience and morality, deceiving you subtly, so they can gain more reach in Facebook for their spam messages and malicious exploits.
Spammers use this technique to boost their Facebook Edgerank, which is like Google juice. The higher your Edgerank, the more Facebook pushes your posts out, the more views your posts will get.
When you click Like, Share, or post a comment, you increase the spammer's FB Edgerank. When you click Share, you distribute the spammy photo and message to your FB friends, who may also click Like on it. So by clicking Share, you become an unwitting participant in spreading this spam exploit to other innocent, well-intentioned victims.
BEWARE of unethical people using social engineering to trick you into clicking Like and Share or posting a Comment. You are being tricked into thinking you are agreeing with a statement or supporting a cause. But that's NOT the point.
The only goal is to generate thousands of Likes and Shares, on THEIR post, to boost their profile's Facebook Edgerank.
It's a blackhat SEO gimmick, which enables them to spam more people, because FB will consider their content to be more important and valued, based on all the Likes and Shares that a sentimental post produces.
They will do things like post a photo of a Down's Syndrome child and attack text like:
QUOTE
This is my sister Mallory. She has down syndrome and doesn't think she's beautiful. Please "like" this photo, so I can show her later that she truly is beautiful.
END QUOTE
Some people are just plain stubborn. They will argue against me, like I'm attacking veterans, or moms, or whatever. They just can't see the scam involved. I try to explain what's going on, but some people are suckers, chumps, naive, easy prey for con artists.
If they sympathize with the noble cause, all they can see is the image and the message. They act like they're blind to the reality behind the ploy.
They refuse to consider how this is a ploy by spammers. They will debate you forever, without listening to what you tell them about social engineering, con artists, like-baiting, rogue apps, and other black hat gimmicks that seduce the person who cannot exercise critical analysis or independent thinking.
Another recent variation the One Million Likes scams ("Daddy said he'd buy us a puppy, if we get one million Likes on this post.") -- and Likejacking, where you're encouraged to click Like on a Facebook page, and are then taken to a phishing page or your own FB account is hijacked, so all your FB friends are spammed in your name.
Remember, the message is a fake. They are lying to you. All they want is to get you to click Like on their post, for their own selfish reasons. If you don't understand Facebook Edgerank algorithms, then you don't understand how malicious this really is.
Don't fall for this skanky ploy. Ignore the request to click Like and Share on such images and messages.
Brian Solis "What Your Business Needs to Know About Facebook's Edgerank"
Daily Dot: Business "Facebook Dresses Content Farm Spam Network"
Yahoo News UK "Facebook Spam Scam Secret Revealed"
Another recent variation the One Million Likes scams ("Daddy said he'd buy us a puppy, if we get one million Likes on this post.") -- and Likejacking, where you're encouraged to click Like on a Facebook page, and are then taken to a phishing page or your own FB account is hijacked, so all your FB friends are spammed in your name.
Remember, the message is a fake. They are lying to you. All they want is to get you to click Like on their post, for their own selfish reasons. If you don't understand Facebook Edgerank algorithms, then you don't understand how malicious this really is.
Don't fall for this skanky ploy. Ignore the request to click Like and Share on such images and messages.
Brian Solis "What Your Business Needs to Know About Facebook's Edgerank"
Daily Dot: Business "Facebook Dresses Content Farm Spam Network"
Yahoo News UK "Facebook Spam Scam Secret Revealed"
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