Facebook and CO have become an integral part of our everyday lives. They are a source of information, communication channel and entertainment platform. But behind the facade of viral videos, funny memes and touching stories lurks a less obvious danger: like farming on Facebook.
What is like farming?
Like farming is a common practice on Facebook where creators collect likes and shares from such status posts and Facebook pages/groups with emotional posts. The trick: As soon as a desired number of interactions (likes and comments) is reached, the posts are edited and often contain links to malicious websites or phishing pages.
The dark side of likes and shares
The creators often take a clever approach. The posts appear harmless and appeal to the compassion of users. Pictures of sick children, stories of animals in need or tragic fates are popular topics to generate interactions.
Examples of such status posts


But once the necessary reach is reached, the true intention of the creators of such posts becomes apparent: They use the fraudulent likes and shares to advertise spam products, spread malware or steal personal data through phishing.
Here is an example of product advertising! This page collected more than 230,000 fans during the Corona pandemic because it provided its users with Corona information at the time. There is no longer any mention of it on the site now. Instead, products are constantly being posted on Amazon! An Amazon link is hidden behind a Kurlink. If you order something via this link, the creator receives a commission!

How can you recognize like farming?
Detecting like farming can sometimes be difficult, especially when the original post is harmless or emotionally engaging. Here are some tips on how to spot like farming on Facebook:
- Highly emotional or sensational content: Like farming posts often use emotional or sensational content to elicit an emotional response and get users to interact. This could be an image of a sick child or animal in need of support, or a story about a person fighting against all odds.
- Requests for interaction: Creators often ask users to like, share, or comment on the post. You might encourage writing “Amen” or sending congratulations to someone.
- Excessive use of exclamation points and capital letters: In many cases, like farming posts excessively use exclamation points and capital letters to attract users' attention.
- Links to unknown websites: Links to unknown or unsafe websites are often added. Be careful when clicking on such links as they often lead to websites that contain malware or aim to steal your personal information.
- Offers that are too good to be true: competitions, incredible discounts or promises of free products are often a sign of like farming. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
How do you protect yourself from like farming?
To protect yourself from like farming, users can follow the following steps:
- Be critical: Before liking, sharing or commenting on a post, ask yourself whether the content is credible. Many like farming posts attempt to elicit emotional responses or tell incredible stories to drive engagement.
- Check the source: Who originally posted the post? Is it a trustworthy site or a well-known person? It is better to be careful with suspicious or unknown sources.
- Be careful with links: Don't click on links in posts that you find suspicious. These could lead you to unsafe websites or be used to access personal information.
- Do not disclose personal information: Like farming posts may be used to collect personal information. Therefore, never provide personal information in comments or forms unless you are sure it is a legitimate request.
- Report suspicious posts: If you think a post is suspicious, report it. Facebook and other social media have mechanisms to identify and remove fraudulent posts.
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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 )

