Facebook and CO have become a place where millions of users exchange content and information every day. However, in this flood of information, fraud attempts are also emerging in which photos and stories are misused for “like farming” without the consent of those affected. We recently reported on “ The unethical use of photos of sick and disabled people on Facebook .”
A typical example of this is a story shared on Facebook in May 2023 that caught the attention of many users. The image was shared over 53,000 times and received 2,500 likes and over 1,800 comments. An interaction that we as Mimikama can only dream of!
The claim
The story revolves around a Facebook post that shows a picture of two women on a sofa. One of the women has her arms and legs amputated. The accompanying message said it was the amputee's birthday and she was sad because her sister told her no one would share her photo because she was disabled. The post was shared tens of thousands of times.
Abuse on Facebook: The photo of a woman with a disability. The fact check
To verify the authenticity of this post, we conducted a reverse image search. It was discovered that the photo had already in the British newspaper “The Sun” in July 2017 . In the article, the young woman, whose name is Izzy Weall and was 14 years old at the time, whose arms and legs had to be amputated after meningitis, told her story and reported on her YouTube channel , where she gives make-up tips.
The principle of like farming
Like farming is a tactic in which an account attracts engagement in the form of likes, comments, or shares by posting emotionally engaging, but often false, content. Once the post has achieved a high engagement rate, the original poster can edit the content, for example by adding a link to a malicious website.
Conclusion: In this particular case, the claim was false and the photo was misused without the consent of the person concerned. Users should therefore be careful and check the source and context of posts before sharing them. The photo is older than the Facebook post and is absolutely not related to a current birthday. This is an improper use of the photo for like farming on Facebook.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )