Facebook Verified Profiles, Pages, Groups?

What does this even mean?

Facebook provides various ways the profile and page owners can be verified for the confidence of Facebook visitors. Unfortunately, some are rock solid and others types of verifications have serious flaws.

The first thing to always remember about Facebook is that it is run by human beings, and many are poorly trained in how to recognize certain scamsScams A Scam is a confidence trick - a crime -  is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust through deception. Scams or confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, or greed and exploiting that. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men' - criminals) at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". A scam is a crime even if no money was lost. and scammers. So always be cautious online no matter if someone is verified or not!

UPDATE 2021

Facebook no longer verifies most pages or profiles. They now only do this for governmental, celebrity, and high-profile accounts. The rest of the world is out of luck!

Facebook Profile Verification

What is a verified profile?

Some profiles have been verified by Facebook to let people know that they’re authentic:
If you see a blue checkmark badge on a profile, it means that Facebook confirmed that this is the authentic profile for this public figure. Keep in mind that not all public figures, celebrities, and brands on Facebook have blue badges. Facebook decides in their own weird way who gets the badge even if they are verified.

The blue verification checkmark badge lets people know that a profile of public interest is authentic. Not the “Public Interest” that means you have to be a movie star to get one!

Facebook applies the blue verification badge to eligible public figures (not normal or even business people unless you are a rock star!). Eligibility for the blue verification badge is based on a variety of factors, such as account completeness, policy compliance, and public interest, also Facebooks own dictatorial voodoo selection system.

If an account doesn’t have a blue verification badge, it does not mean that it isn’t verified, it just means that in Facebook’s view it wasn’t worth the effort to flip on a simple switch to show the badge. Over 95% of verified profiles DO NOT SHOW the blue checkmark trust badge.

According to Facebook, there are other ways to help let people know that a profile authentic. But as well know only too well, that is a cop-out since few people know enough about Facebook Profile Forensics to properly identify fakes with 100% accuracy.

To request a blue verification badge from Facebook, a profile must comply with Facebook’s terms of service and have the following:

• A cover photo
• A profile photo
• A name that follows Facebook’s guidelines
• Content posted to the account
• “Follow” enabled (profiles only) – this is the disqualifier for anyone that has any sense. Followers are dangerous and allow scammers and cybercriminals to track your activities.

So the result is that if someone has “followers” turn off (as is recommended for safety) they cannot get the checkmark.

Every one of our own officers has been verified for years, but Facebook hasn’t yet added their blue marks!

When Is It A Fake Verification?

Many scammers add a blue checkmark to their main profile image to fool you. It is ONLY a confirmed verification if the blue checkmark appears next to the profile name.

Verified Pages

If you see a gray checkmark badge on a Page, it means that Facebook confirmed that this is an authentic Page for this business or organization.

However, vast numbers of truly verified pages do not have the mark anymore. So the checkmark is only useful with government and celebrity pages!

The gray checkmark verification badge lets people know that a Page for a business or organization is authentic. Except it doesn’t – it only lets someone know they have a utility bill in that name.

Facebook says that to be verified a page must be:

• Be published
• Have a profile picture and cover photo
• Have posts

To verify a Page: It must have a publicly listed phone number for the business, country and, language.  That means the business must have a publicly listed phone number, and in today’s world not all businesses do – a huge number of businesses use the cell phones of their officers (for example).

Keep in mind that Facebook does not always display the checkmark even if they have verified the business. Facebook appears to have a gigantic backlog of pages that have been verified but do not yet have the badge displayed. Additionally, if a business has many different pages, FB will only verify ONE page. The result is a breakdown of the Facebook trust system.

Verified Groups

Facebook appears to have no verification process for groups at this time. However, groups can be linked to pages, so at least you know that a group is owned by the owners of a specific page.

Verified Websites

This appears to have gone away!

If Verified?

Great, everything is happy in the universe. A Blue or Grey checkmark tells you they have been verified and authentic. Unfortunately, the absence of a checkmark does not mean they have not been verified, it only means it is not displayed.

For example, if a business changes its phone number in the information on a Page it will lose its trust mark. If the company uses a “brand” for their page, and the legal company name if different, then the page does not qualify for a trust mark (without the involvement of lawyers).

Summary

In short, the Facebook verification process is seriously flawed and in most cases broken, but when they display the marks you can reasonably trust them. Just do not automatically assume a profile or page without a mark is not trustworthy.

The Simple Rule Of Thumb?
Trust No One!

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