Israel’s “fake profile” scandal — and why “fakies” don’t work
Like many communications professionals, I was disheartened to read Times of Israel reporter Judah Ari Gross’s investigative report into a network of fakes profiles allegedly set up by Israel’s Ministry of Absorption (aliyah).
Ever trying to encourage Jews abroad to immigrate to Israel, an enterprising individual at a content agency got the bright idea that — rather than ask real immigrants to divulge their trials and tribulations of moving to Israel— he would simply combine stock imagery with fake names and fake quotations to streamline the process (and save him or herself the trouble of leaving the office!)
The gleaming smiles of the supposed immigrant success stories and contrived soundbites must have caught somebody’s attention at the online newspaper — because after passing the images through a search lookup engine it was quickly discovered that they were, in fact, simply stock photograph actors! (I prefer the moniker ‘fakies’ to describe such accounts!
It’s not yet clear who was responsible for what many commentators, including a former spokesperson for President Reuven Rivlin, are rightly decrying as an insult to real ‘aliyah’ success stores.
The Absorption Ministry apparently outsourced management of the social media accounts where the fictive personalities appeared to a media management agency, a not altogether uncommon approach in government communications.
But one thing is clear: the fallout will be severe, with the article having garnered over 700 shares at the time of writing this post, just a few hours after its publication date.
Thinking About Using Fake Accounts? Think Again!
Like many working in the PR and event management space, clients occasionally field my opinion on whether setting up a fake account to promote an event or business would be a good idea.
Slap together a fake photograph, a conceivably biography, and a LinkedIn profile and you can re-invent yourself with the click of a few buttons.
If only.
In light of the fake aliyah story, it behooves me to quickly outline a few reasons why setting up fake profiles is a bad, bad idea.
- Reverse Image Searches
Generating a fake face is not an easy enterprise.
If those trying to pull the scheme attempt to use images from a stock image gallery such as Shutterstock, all somebody needs to do to bust their enterprise is to run the pictures through a reverse image lookup engine.
Game over.
2. No Secondary Networks to Tap Into
Organic interest in an event or PR campaign is a sure-fire way to get people interested in learning more about your product or service.
It’s what I do for a living, helping those in the governmental and NGO sectors to improve their craft.
However, to a large and underappreciated extent, PR works because it gets people’s friends (and their friends) interested in an event. Fake profiles real-life friends are, well, other sets of pixels.
3. TOS Violations
If there’s a quicker way to get yourself kicked off LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Medium it’s probably this — set up a profile under a fake identity!
The content agency at the center of this debacle will probably find themselves bereft of a key account as soon as the story gains traction.
When thinking about setting up fake profiles, there’s so much to risk — and so little to gain.
