Facebook does not have the same sorts of tools that are available with Twitter. Facebook is more of a closed platform. Below are some resources to help.
- Here are Facebook’s instructions for detecting fake accounts: How to identify fake facebook accounts.
- If you’re on Facebook and you suspect an account is falsified, then you can report it. Here are Facebook’s instructions for reporting fake accounts.
- Facebook has created a tool on this page “How can I see if I’ve liked or followed a Facebook Page or Instagram account created by the Internet Research Agency?” to detect if you unwittingly shared content created by the IRA. You need to be logged into Facebook for this to work. The same tool also works for checking Instagram.
Unfortunately, there aren’t the same types of bot-detector tools for Facebook as there are for Twitter. The best prevention is literacy, looking for warning signs and not sharing any content that might be disinformation, no matter how tempting.
Bear in mind that the purpose of disinformation is to divide. It can masquerade as the right or the left. It can even pose as an employer.
