A First Look into Fake Profiles on Social Media through the Lens of Victim's Experiences
Arezou Behfar, Ankit Shrestha, Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen · 2024
With the rise in online social media usage, fake user profiles are becoming prevalent concerns. A body of work suggested machine learning-based models to identify fake profiles, however, the accuracy and applicability of those techniques are still at large. A little study to date, considered end users in the loop, to understand the strategies of intruders, and the reactions of victims. We begin to address this gap in our work, where we aim to look through the lens of users' perceptions who had prior experiences of interacting with fake profiles on social media (i.e., victims of fake profiles). To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 participants. Our findings unpack the viewpoints of fake-profile victims, with regard to intruders' traits and strategies to befriend them on social media, as well as their reactions when they realize that they have interacted with a fake profile. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations on empowering and supporting social media users in order to alleviate their vulnerability to online exploitation.