Facebook’s like button is a pervasive feature of the Web, a way lớn gauge the popularity of a website or piece of content. But researchers have found it’s easy to lớn inflate the numbers, undermining its value as an accurate measure of popularity.

Bạn đang xem: The facebook like button took over 280 hours to design!

The problem of bogus Likes has been around for some time, và Facebook has released updates to its software over the last couple of years to cut down on fraudulent ones generated by spammers.


But researchers with Mc
Gill University’s School of Computer Science in Montreal say the social networking company still hasn’t fixed several major problems with the feature. This week, they released a research paper outlining the problems, which they first told Facebook about in early 2013.

“Those lượt thích numbers may be faked,” said Xue Liu, a professor of computer science at Mc
Gill, in a phone interview. “There are easy ways lớn generate those kém chất lượng Likes, and unfortunately on the Internet, a lot of companies & economic benefits are related lớn the number of Likes now.”


Facebook officials couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. The research is important because companies may be making sale spend decisions based on Likes. There are thriving marketplaces for people to buy giả Likes, which can cost around $30 for 1,000.

Also, average Facebook users may not be aware of exactly what kind of actions generate a Like. It’s generally assumed that a single user can only generate one Like, but that’s not actually the case. Sharing a liên kết on Facebook from a source with an embedded like button increases the count by one.


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Facebook

If the same user comments on the post, the lượt thích button continues to lớn rise. A demo clip shows how a spammer could write a script that posts a piece of nội dung on Facebook & then adds nonsensical comments, each of which causes the like count to lớn tick up once.

In that example, 30 Likes were quickly generated. The researchers found it was possible to generate up to trăng tròn likes per minute by creating a post, adding kém chất lượng comments, deleting the post & repeating. Those actions didn’t trigger a rate-limiting feature in Facebook that might have frozen the account for a while.


The flaw has been around for years và is apparently rooted in outdated Facebook APIs that are still used by many websites, including CNN, ABC News, The Huffington Post và The Economist, according lớn their research paper.

What’s useful about their method is that it can generate a high number of Likes using only a single account. It means that spammers wouldn’t need to take the time and expense of creating a high number of zombie accounts that would likely be detected and removed by Facebook.

Another demonstration video shows how a Like—which is essentially a soft endorsement—can appear out of context and may actually be contrary khổng lồ a user’s real opinion.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The researchers created a kém chất lượng Web page for demonstration purposes that promoted disgraced investor Bernard Madoff. The website had an embedded lượt thích button. If the site’s URL was shared on Facebook, anyone who commented on it would increase the page’s lượt thích count, even though it’s doubtful anyone would truly endorse it.

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But people who visited the web page would have seen an ever-rising lượt thích count, giving the impression that the site is worthy. Other large online services, such as You
Tube và Quora have worked around this contextual problem by adding “dislike” or “downvote” buttons.

The researchers also found if a Facebook user deletes a post, the lượt thích count doesn’t correspondingly drop.

Facebook wraps a lot of data into the little number next to the lượt thích button. The company is straightforward about it in its documentation, saying that a like includes not only the people who hit the button, but also the number of times the URL has been shared & the number of comments. But some people may not know that.

The paper was also co-authored by Xinye Lin và Mingyuan Xia of Mc
Gill’s School of Computer Science.
















Liking or Sharing: Which strategy is preferable?
After reading this far, you may have already chosen your preferred style of Facebook button. Your preference probably has to vị with what you hope lớn gain from your social nội dung buttons, & it’s important to note that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to liking vs. Sharing. Each has its own virtues.

The lượt thích button is good for social proof.

There is nguồn in seeing 600+ Facebook Likes on an article you wrote. The psychological explanation behind this is wisdom of the crowds, where large groups of people approving a certain something (a blogpost, for instance) motivates others to vì chưng the same. There may even be a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out), an anxiety from new readers that they need to lớn read this article to catch up with what everyone else has found so great.

The lượt thích button is almost entirely frictionless.

Did you notice how little effort it took for me lớn complete the process of Liking a blogpost? If you want lớn make the experience as absolutely easy as possible for your readers, it doesn’t get much easier than the one-click lượt thích button. There’s no messages lớn create, no networks lớn navigate. It’s just a simple, easy click.

The nói qua button gets your nội dung maximum exposure.

If you want your story lớn be seen in more News Feeds, then go with the nói qua button. Liking a post keeps the post relatively hidden on one’s profile. Sharing a post puts the content front-and-center. (And the rest is up khổng lồ Facebook’s algorithm khổng lồ disperse.)

Smashing Magazine ran an interesting experiment on their popular blog, removing all Facebook buttons & trusting readers to nói qua posts on Facebook individually when they found them worth sharing. The results:

We removed FB buttons & traffic from Facebook increased. Reason: instead of “liking” articles, readers share it on their timeline.— Smashing Magazine (