Impostors laying claim to the identity
of President Goodluck Jonathan on Facebook have suffered a set-back, no
thanks to Facebook which recently verified the profile of the President
on the social network.
If you are finding it difficult to
distinguish the authentic Facebook account of the President from the
over 98 profiles bearing the President’s name and photographs, watch out
for the social service’s recently launched verified page’s check mark.
Jonathan now joins public figures such
as United States President Barack Obama, and American singer, Lady Gaga
among others enjoying the feature.
Facebook says the verified pages belong
to a small group of prominent figures such as celebrities, journalists,
government officials, popular brands and businesses.
The Facebook’s authenticity check mark
helps to shield celebrities around the world from fraudsters prowling
around the social network, using their identities.
Once the name of a celebrity or public
figure whose profile has been verified is keyed into the search box, a
blue check mark would pop up along with the name in the search results
and in the timeline.
But surprisingly, the Facebook page of
British Prime Minister, David Cameron, with over 191,223 followers has
yet to be verified. His Twitter handle, @David _Cameron has since been
verified by the microbloging service. Also, the Facebook page of
Ghanaian President, John Mahama, who has over 191,223 followers has yet
to get a Facebook verification, four weeks after the social service
announced the new feature.
Facebook clearly states that it doesn’t
provide users with the opportunity to request to get pages verified but
that users can report people who impersonate them on the social
service.
“Keep in mind that not all authentic
profiles and pages are verified and that you can’t request to have your
profile or page verified. You can report fake accounts that are
impersonating you, your business or your brand,” it states on its Help
Centre.
If you come across an account that
pretends to be you, use your photographs, as avater, you can simply
report by going to the users timeline and click on the Report/Block
button. Users will have to follow the on-screen direction to file the
report.
Facebook users suffering in the hands
of impostors can curtail the activities of fraudsters by including a
link to the page on their official website such that the plug-ins of
the social account they operate are used on such websites. With this,
people searching for them on the social media can follow directly from
the homepage of the website.
Just as Facebook now uses the
Twitter-style verification, Pinterest, a pinboard-style photo-sharing
website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image
collections also has a verification feature.
The feature lets users verify that they
own the website on their Pinterest profile. To verify your website,
visit your Settings page and click on the ‘Verify Website’ button.
Currently, Pinterest says it supports top-level domains.
When a website being used on a
Pintesrest profile is verified, people will see a red checkmark next to
their domain in search results. They will also see the full website URL
and checkmark on users’ profile.
Besides, Facebook has also introduced
hashtags to improve engagement of users of its service. Just like it
operates on Twitter, Hashtags will help users easily discover what
others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public
discussions.
Facebook has said that when tweets and
other posts using hashtags are shared on Facebook, those hashtags will
be viewable through Facebook.
Meanwhile, one thing that the use of
hashtags may rob Facebook users of some level of privacy which many on
the network had hitherto been enjoying. This is because everyone will be
able to view user’s comments when hashtags are employed, irrespective
of the privacy settings, as the hashtags will string them all together
for public view.
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