Facebook hunts suspect Likes

The social network is looking to improve the integrity of their systems starting with suspect Like’s made against products and posts.

Facebook has 955 million active members who share 2.5 billion pieces of information daily and who click on Like 2.7 billion times. It looks like some of these Likes are possibly "suspect" though.

The social network has decided to hunt these Like’s that come from people who are not really interested in supporting the pages. They are particularly looking for fake accounts, accounts that have been hacked or taken over by malware and even people who have been paid to click on Like.

"We want to ensure that connection involves a real person interested in hearing from a specific Page and engaging with that brand’s content. As such, we have recently increased our automated efforts to remove Likes on Pages that may have been gained by means that violate our Facebook Terms", states Facebook.

With these improvements, the social network is looking at removing less than 1% of Likes on any particular page.

Facebook continues "To be clear, we do not and have never permitted the purchase or sale of Facebook Likes as we only want people connecting to the Pages and brands with whom they have chosen to connect", with the social network looking to keep users Likes as authentic as possible.

The presence of fake Likes on Facebook pages raises some questions about a brands real value when being pushed through this medium. There are some people wondering whether this hunt is to stop the brand becoming tarnished over the long term which could affect the company’s stock price.