ULPT Request: Unethical Approaches to Shut Down a Facebook Page or Ban Their Affiliate Account
Posted by dafuckscapacitor@reddit | UnethicalLifeProTips | View on Reddit | 4 comments
I’m seeking advice on dealing with a Facebook page that’s impersonating two of my friends, world-renowned professional West Coast Swing dancers who’ve won numerous championships. The page has over 75k followers and strong engagement from people who genuinely believe it’s run by my friends.
The impersonator uploads photos and videos, claiming to be my friends, and in the comments, they post Amazon affiliate links to products they claim these dancers use (e.g., “These are my dance shoes” or “This is my outfit”). Most of these posts get hundreds of comments.
Here’s what’s frustrating:
Anyone who calls out the page as being fake in comments get blocked immediately and their comments get deleted.
Dozens of people, including the dancers themselves, have reported the page for impersonation, but it only gets temporarily taken down.
After appeals, the page always comes back up.
Facebook’s reporting system doesn’t seem to have any long-term effect.
At this point, I’m open to creative approaches to shut this page down for good. Maybe something that disrupts their operations (ex: get their affiliate account banned), exposes their fraud, or makes them lose credibility with their followers.
Have any of you dealt with something like this? How would you make this scammer’s life difficult enough that they give up?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Prebral@reddit
Not unethical, but have you also tried to report them for possible copyright infringement if they use photos/music/videos related to your friends of which you know the author? More types of misconduct may flag them harder.
Do they use Facebook paid options to promote their page? Sometimes people make a mistake and pay the promotion from a different account that can be linked to their identity. I have witnessed a case recently where an unethical local journalist had his "blog" on Facebook talking about misconduct of his enemies and also ran a small fake account farm that anonymously supported his claims as "independent" activists. However, he promoted his "real" account from one of the "activist" accounts, the information was visible and helped to link him to the shadier parts of his activity. Revealed identity can expand possible array of further actions unless it is some larger Chinese automated enterprise.
Concerning identification, there is also a possibility to reach the fake account operators over messaging from an unrelated account as a "fan" and ask them for some some service you are willing to pay for personally like sending a signed postcard. Act old and stupid, like when trolling Nigerian scammers, offer relatively good amount of money, but be unable to use bitcoin and similar anknymized payment methods. Try to make them provide any information that can be tracked to real people or location - bank account details, address, separate web site with non-private whois data, phone number etc.
dafuckscapacitor@reddit (OP)
These are all really good ideas! Thank you. I'll pass it along to them
tilldeathdoiparty@reddit
Piss discs, liquid ass, and scorpions will work, why not trying to combine all three and have a really good time!
dafuckscapacitor@reddit (OP)
They don't offer a way to contact them and there is no physical address on their page. So it would need to be something that could be done to the page itself or their Amazon affiliate account.