Facebook may give you a call if your profile looks suspicious

Mumbai: Social networking giant Facebook is making a "huge effort" to weed out fake profiles to prevent misuse of such identities, a senior company official has said.

"Absolutely, there is a huge effort," Facebook India business manager Pavan Varma said when asked about the company's action on this front.

If Facebook doubts the ownership of an account, it will ask the user to identify himself/herself, he said.


The doubt about the authenticity of the account will arise if an account has a generic name instead of a proper name, uses images of celebrities/ cartoon characters as display pictures, or does not have "enough friends", Mr Varma said.

"It could even be that Facebook comes back to you saying, "could you help us identify yourself if you don't have enough friends, because we don't want fake identities," he said.

"We are worried about the experience we deliver....It's not about protecting our brand identity so much," he said.

Recently there were reports of fake accounts being created by computer programs, which are used for inflating the number of "likes" on Facebook page for a brand.

Facebook had recently said it would be taking out fake "likes" generated by spammers, malware and black marketers.

Mr Varma said advertisers must also shed the obsession with numbers. "How does an advertiser today treat a Facebook page? It is treated as a place where they just come with a number of people who are there. But that is a wrong way of doing it," he said, stressing that the conversations around the brand should assume importance rather than the numbers.

Mere "likes" on the page do not help a brand, he said.

Companies generally pay Facebook for a dedicated page on its platform that helps them connect with the target audience.

IDBI Bank claims it has over five lakh fans on Facebook, Varma said, on the sidelines of a banking summit.

He added that Facebook, as a medium, is completely secure and cited the case of ICICI Bank, which now offers basic services over the Facebook page by integrating its net banking platform with the social networking site.
  
From: NDTV

Working with government to remove hateful content: Facebook

New Delhi: Social networking website Facebook on Tuesday said it is working with the government to remove "hateful content" that is widely being perceived as likely to spark communal tension across the country.

"Facebook will remove content which breaches our terms as set out in our statement of rights and responsibilities. Content or individuals can be removed from Facebook for a variety of reasons, including issuing direct calls for violence or perpetuating hate speech," the company spokesperson told IANS.

"We have received requests from Indian authorities and agencies and are working through those requests and responding to the agencies. We encourage people to continue to use our tools to report content they are concerned about so that we can investigate and take action fast," he added.

This is against the backdrop of the online hate campaign targeting people from the North-East which has put the spotlight on the power of the social media network in India, which accounts for more than 60 million users.

The unprecedented exodus of people from the North-East, abetted by hate messages, has also opened the debate about issues related to internet freedom and content regulation.

India, which is looking into the alleged role of Pakistan-based elements in using morphed images on the internet, has blocked over 250 websites for orchestrating the online campaign of hatred.

According to a report by iCRossing, nearly 36 million people in the country use Facebook.

Of these, nearly 50 percent users are aged below 50. Estimates for 2012 posted on the India pages of various network sites show that microblogging site Twitter and LinkedIn have nearly 15 million users each in India.