What is Like Farming and Why Do They Do It?
Facebook pages are dominated by posts trying to get you to like and share, copy and paste, or even fall for a fake offer. This article will explain what scammers are attempting to do and how you can prevent yourself from being a victim.
Like Farming – This shows itself in a lot of different forms. I’m 120. Can I get 100 likes? My wife says I can XYZ if I get 1,000,000 likes. They can be fun loving such as Like this goat just because.
Like farming also pulls on your heartstrings with images of children and animals suffering asking for likes. Or it can be provocative, requesting likes for very politically charged issues or asking people to show their support of a cause or even support for the President.
According to Malware Bytes, most of the posts created with the intention of like-farming have one or more of these characteristics:
- “I bet that [this subject] does not get a million likes,” where the subject is a mistreated animal, an unfortunate child, or anything else that deserves our sympathy.
- “90 percent fail this test,” where you can usually spot the answer in less than 10 seconds.
- “This is your chance to win an iPhone!” or any other desirable and expensive prize.
- “Combine the month you were born in and the last thing you bought to find your vixen name.” The combinations are endless, but the answers will reveal some of your personal data.
- “Respond to this statement if you are a true friend. I think I know who will answer.” If you have “friends” that will unfriend you when you don’t participate—good riddance.
- “Facebook will donate one dollar for every like to this good cause.” Trust me on this one: Facebook will not.
- “Send this to 10 of your Facebook groups to receive [a reward],” where the reward could be anything from eternal happiness to Disneyland tickets.
- “Share this and see what happens.” Nothing happens, except maybe a feeling of frustration.
- The posts often include a time limit. This is so you don’t take the time to think it through, and it give
Explained: like-farming: Malwarebytes Labs , Arntz https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2019/04/explained-like-farming
Like Farmers are not as malevolent as scammers and hoaxers (discussed in future articles), but they are trying to use you and get you to reveal your personal data so that they can sell it to the highest bidder.