“If you come across spam on Facebook, report it to us. By doing so, you’ll be playing an important role in helping us protect other people from scams.”
— Facebook
We’re here today asking you to help us remove spam accounts on our platform. Please report any Facebook profiles you think might be bots trying to get you to visit pornography sites, so we can make room for all the real people trying to get you to believe 5G towers are transmitting Chinese pornography into your head.
It’s important we work together on this. In recent years, fake accounts have gotten significantly better at appearing human, while human Facebook users have gotten significantly better at appearing like malfunctioning alt-right drones programmed to say the most insane shit they can think of.
This situation is serious. We need your help eliminating fraudsters that are ruining the Facebook experience.
Because Facebook shouldn’t be about getting bombarded with weirdly worded messages from spam accounts asking for your driver’s license number. Facebook should be about getting bombarded with weirdly worded posts from your brother-in-law attacking the “groomer mayor” and also begging for a loan so he can open a CrossFit gym.
So please, know the difference before you file a report.
If an account named Babe Raven asks you to go to 7-Eleven and wire her some money so you guys can get married—FILE A REPORT. That’s spam.
If an account with a profile picture of Vladimir Putin doing archery asks if you want to grab a smoothie at the mall so he can show you “the Pfizer numbers”—DO NOT FILE A REPORT. That’s a real guy from your high school. We need him to generate ad revenue.
The good news is we’ve taken down thousands of fake accounts already. And we’ve worked with law enforcement to ensure these fraudulent bad actors are held accountable so they stop using Facebook to lure people into scams.
Even better news, we’ve done nothing to ensure that all the flesh-and-blood bad actors are held accountable. You will continue to see these people in your feed hundreds of times a day, attempting to lure you into hateful ideologies, beauty product pyramid schemes, conspiracy theories about NASA, and domestic terrorist cells.
Whatever nutso bullshit real people from your life want to shove in your face, they’ll always be able to do that on Facebook.
Rest assured, Facebook users, we will never let our platform be overrun with harmful gibberish posted by spambots. We will continue to let it be overrun with dangerous, confusing nonsense posted in complete earnestness by actual human beings.