How to find out who is behind a fake Facebook account

A Facebook profile you don’t recognise is sending you harassing messages about your alleged indiscretions, threatening to reveal more. An anonymous Facebook page posts defamatory information about your business, hurting your profitability. A fake Facebook account in a colleague’s name is spreading malicious lies about you to family and friends. With their devastating impact on reputations, careers, and livelihoods, all these scenarios present us with the crucial challenge of how to find out who is behind a fake Facebook account. While we explored cyberbullying, trolling, and social media harassment in a previous blog, it is worth focusing particularly on Facebook (as well as Instagram). Read on to learn how Facebook Investigators can assist you.

Facebook’s Potential (Danger)

As the third-most visited website in the world, Facebook has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives. With almost 3 billion users, more than one in three people around the world now utilises the social media platform. Facebook allows us to communicate with faraway friends and family, buy and sell goods, and interact with customers. However, from QAnon to Cambridge Analytica, data mining to hate speech, election interference to the spread of misinformation, Facebook also has a deeply troubling side. One area where this is particularly apparent is the scourge of fake Facebook accounts.

Fake Facebook Accounts

Facebook estimates that more than one in ten of its accounts are either duplicates or fakes. Indeed, its VP for Integrity recently stated that the platform is discovering and deleting millions of fake accounts every year. In the heat of the last US presidential election, Facebook removed 1.3 billion accounts between October and December 2020 alone! To deal with fake accounts and misinformation, Facebook now employs over 35,000 people worldwide for that very purpose. Unfortunately, they often have bigger fish to fry than individual cases of cyberbullying, defamation, and harassment. Even if Facebook does act to shut down a Profile or Page, harassers often simply set up another one. A game of whack-a-mole ensues but the central task remains unsolved. You still don’t know how to find out who is behind a fake Facebook account!

How to Find Out Who is Behind a Fake Facebook Account

So, you figured that a cyber bully is harassing or defaming you from the anonymity of a fake Facebook account? You might even have a hunch who it could be: a disgruntled former employer, a spiteful ex-lover, or a jealous competitor. But how do you find out for sure who is behind a fake account, and importantly, make them stop? If you report it to Facebook, they might shut down the account, but they won’t release information about who is behind it to you. The police can only assist in criminal matters and usually require an IP address or other evidence to act upon. Finally, your lawyer can only help if they know who to actually send a cease-and-desist letter to! Luckily, you have come to the right place: Cybertrace’s Facebook Investigators can help you find out who is behind a fake Facebook account.

What does Cybertrace have that others don’t?

Cybertrace uses a combination of technical investigative techniques in order to find out who is behind a fake Facebook account. Our team of experts Facebook Investigators are constantly updating and developing new tools to expose cyber bullies and online harassers. By always staying ahead of the latest technological developments, we are constantly improving our ability to pinpoint vital identifying information. This includes comparing published content and writing styles used by the fake profile to any individuals identified as potential suspects. Cybertrace has also developed its own highly specialised tools with the capability to deploy through Facebook to extract user information, such as an IP address, mobile device type, and other data which can be used to identify the offender. These constantly updated tools are not used by any other investigators and remain one of Cybertrace’s leading tools to find out who is behind a fake Facebook profile.

Over the past few years, we have established ourselves as international experts in successfully revealing harassers’ personal information and IP addresses. Our clients have taken our reports to their lawyers, the police, and the courts to get justice. As professional Facebook Investigators, we stay up to date with all relevant changes in policy, legislation, and technology to help you get the best outcomes possible. Contact us today to stop cyberbullies and reclaim your reputation, sanity, and peace of mind.

 

Editor’s Note: this article was originally published in July 2021 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.