Graphic photos of a Syrian boy who drowned off the Turkish coast are being exploited by like-farming spammers on Facebook in order to gain likes for Facebook pages, as we urge readers to check their sources before sharing.
The Internet – and social media especially – have been confronted with some pretty difficult images this week.
Photos of a drowned Syrian boy lying lifelessly on a beach off the coast of Turkey have been shared prolifically across social media platforms like Facebook. The boy, along with other Syrian refugees, was trying unsuccessfully to reach Greece.
The latest incident in the on-going European migrant crisis.
Being passed from friend to friend, or appearing as a result of sharing media reports, the graphic photos have reached millions, justified by the reasoning that we cannot hide away from the very real, very serious nature of this crisis.
Yes, the photos illustrate a grave situation. But this hasn’t stopped like-farming spammers from trying to exploit them to harvest likes for Facebook pages.
Like-farming scams – the process of gathering likes for a particular page through a combination of emotional exploitation, manipulation and deception – will involve scammers posting a string of posts designed specifically to capture followers for a Facebook page, which can then be later used for a variety of nefarious uses, or even sold to marketing outfits.
And the “1 share = 1 prayer” method – a spin-off from the “Facebook will donate for every like” method – is a popular way such like-farming pages emotionally exploit Facebook users.
And that is exactly what we’ve been seeing in this case. The photos of the lifeless Syrian boy laying on the beach, with the words “1 share = 1 prayer” emblazoned across the bottom.
The page that posted the photo was a like-farming page with an obvious history of posting similar exploitative material with the sole aim of accruing as many followers as possible.
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If you choose to share the photos through your social media account, we strongly implore you to check the source of the image first. Don’t share images that have been uploaded by like-farming pages. Like-farming spammers only care about how viral their posts go and how many likes and followers they can pick up in the process, and they’ll exploit any event in order to do that.
If you see the photos on Facebook and are considering sharing them, simply check if it was a Facebook page that posted them and what sort of Facebook page it is. Like-farming pages are easy to spot, because their previous posts will generally be made up of the same types of posts.
Read our article on how like-farming works in more details here.