Verified Facebook Page Impersonating Elon Musk Surfaces, Lures 70,000 Followers
Verified Facebook Page Impersonating Elon Musk Surfaces, Lures 70,000 Followers
An Elon Musk-affiliated verified Facebook page that had amassed more than 70,000 followers was taken down from the social networking site. A similar Facebook page impersonating the Tesla CEO was discovered online less than a month ago, and this was yet another incident to occur within that time frame. As one of its most recent posts requested users to contact the page's owner via direct messages in exchange for an unknown digital currency, it appeared that the newly discovered fan page had been created by cryptocurrency fraudsters.
According to cybersecurity researcher Ehraz Ahmed, Elon Musk's Facebook page had been fraudulently verified earlier this month. Before Musk's earlier Facebook page was taken down in November, he revealed to Gadget 360 that he came across it.
"Despite my conviction that the scam was not over, I was confident in the scammers' ability to come up with another similar scheme in the future. I did not expect the new fake page to appear so quickly, and I was surprised by it "explained the researcher based in Bangalore.
It appears from the information contained within the About section that the page in question was first published in May of this year. The page did not change its name, which is in contrast to the previous verified page that appeared and was removed last month, which underwent at least six name changes in 2021 and was originally created to represent a "Kizito Gavin" — the reversed name of Uganda footballer Gavin Kizito — before being taken down.
It was incorrectly displayed as https://www.facebook.com/ellonnmusk, despite the fact that the page's name and spelling were correct and the URL was correctly displayed as By itself, this suggested that something was wrong. It was also revealed that it was managed by people from Germany and Spain, according to the verified page. Musk is notable for being based in Texas, rather than Europe, as his primary location of operation.
It appeared, according to Ahmed, that the previously discovered as well as the newly discovered Facebook pages were both involved in a cryptocurrency fraud.
According to him, "the previous page that I reported requested Bitcoins in exchange for a doubled amount." "A detour was taken by the scammers and their cum impersonators this time. Their post announced Musk's intention to launch a new cryptocurrency called #MUSKCoin, which was later removed from the website. In addition, those who are interested in learning more about this digital currency can contact him directly through his website."
Web News Observer was the first to break the news of Musk's second verified Facebook page, which went live last week. Although Gadgets 360 was unable to independently verify that the page was active until Monday, we were able to confirm that it had been removed shortly after we raised our concerns with Meta, Facebook's parent company. Although the company was repeatedly contacted for comment on the matter, they did not respond.
It is unclear whether the page was taken down by Facebook or by its administrators or administrators.
Facebook as "lame"
Earlier this year, Musk, who is a frequent tweeter, referred to Facebook as "lame" and called for its demise, using the hashtag #DeleteFacebook in his message. A tweet by Hollywood actor and producer Sacha Baron Cohen, criticizing Facebook, prompted the response. But this was not the first time the billionaire, who is 50 years old, has publicly expressed his disdain for the social media site.
When asked about Facebook in 2018, Musk responded that the social media platform was "lame."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also been absent from Meta's Instagram account since August 2018.
Ineffective even after a thorough verification process
Facebook's support page explains that, according to the verified badge, the page or profile on its platform represents the authentic presence of the public figure or company. Facebook Pages and profiles are evaluated to determine whether they are "in the public interest" and whether they meet the company's verification criteria, according to the company, which takes into account "a variety of factors." Additionally, it necessitates the production of an official identification document, such as a driver's license or passport, by the page or profile owner to prove their ownership of the page. The process appears to be ineffective, however, in terms of preventing fraudulent verifications, despite its strictness.
According to Noah Giansiracusa, a professor at Bentley University in Boston, "For Facebook to make such egregious errors as authenticating this bogus Elon Musk account strongly suggests that the company has simply not invested enough resources in human-centric review processes and is instead relying on its artificial intelligence (AI) systems to work well enough — which they probably do in many instances, but we also know they will fail in many specific instances."
He recently published a book titled "How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News," in which he discusses the difficulties associated with utilizing artificial intelligence and human moderation to restrict false content on the internet.
For allowing fake news and misinformation to spread on its platform, Facebook has earned a well-deserved reputation. However, while the platform has made attempts to address these issues in the recent past by releasing updates, one of the issues that it has not yet successfully resolved is the issue of fake and duplicate users.
Chief Financial Officer David Wehner acknowledged the problem of duplicate users during an earnings call in 2018. He stated that "when multiple accounts for a single user exist, the Facebook MAU number does account for them, and we estimate that they account for approximately 10% of our Facebook MAUs, as previously disclosed in the limitation of key metrics section of our SEC filings." He went on to say that
A former Meta employee turned whistleblower raised concerns about the company's handling of duplicate accounts earlier this year, and Frances Haugen echoed those concerns.
In the opinion of Giansiracusa, the fact that Facebook has limited control over deleting duplicate and fake accounts implies that the platform's artificial intelligence algorithms are inefficient and ineffective when it comes to removing impersonated profiles.
According to him, "With fake accounts like this one from Elon Musk, I'm left wondering whether Facebook is truly committed to resolving this issue — after all, even these fake accounts generate significant engagement and thus profit for Facebook, so what's the real incentive for the company to rein them in?"
