Superfact 19: An account impersonating you on Facebook does not mean you have been hacked. When someone using your name and photo starts sending friend requests to your friends on Facebook, they are most likely just copying your information. You have not been hacked.
I am considering this a super-fact because almost every time I see this the person being impersonated states “….I have been hacked”. Most likely they have not been hacked. They don’t need to change their password or take special precautions related to their account or password. It is not the problem.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network with over 3 billion users and few people understand this common Facebook problem, which is why I am calling it super-fact. All that happened is that someone downloaded their photo, copied some information, and started sending out friend requests to their friends. It is so easy to do that. Any 10-year-old can do it and there’s no hacking required. If you think about it for a minute, I am sure you all could do it.
However, it is not appropriate behavior and Facebook can delete your account and ban you if you resort to this behavior.
So, what can you do to reduce the chance of being impersonated? You can go to Settings & Privacy > Privacy Settings and set your profile to private by setting “Who can see your posts?” to friends only, but if you want visibility and don’t want to go that far you can set the “Who can see your friends list?” to “only me”. You can also set “Who can see posts you’re tagged in?” to “Friends” or “Only me”. You can “Limit Who can see your profile picture and cover photo?” to “Friends.”
Additional things you can do are regularly search your name on Facebook to check for fake profiles and avoid oversharing.
The actions above will greatly reduce the chance that someone will impersonate you but if it happens anyway, you can report the offender by going to the fake profile and click on the three dots (…) on their cover photo, select “Find support” or “report profile” and choose “Pretending to Be Someone” and follow the instructions to report the account. Encourage your friends to do the same.
To see the other Super Facts click here
Have you ever been impersonated on Facebook?
Super Facts 