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Every day many fake accounts are created using fake photos of other people that are freely available on the internet. Many people use photos of celebrities in other countries, as these people have lots of available pictures but aren't commonly recognizable. If you think someone's Facebook picture or pictures might be fake, read on to learn how to find out for sure.
Steps
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Sign into your Facebook account. Having an account yourself makes it much easier to investigate and find more information about other accounts.
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Think about why you might be suspicious of another account. For example, if you get a friend request from someone whom you don't know, think about - or even ask - why that person might want to be friends with you. Thinking about this and investigating an account can help clarify your suspicions and ease the process of figuring out whether a photo is fake.Advertisement
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Save the url of the photo which you want to check. Sometimes, you'll need to be friends with the person who posted the photo in order to be able to see it and retrieve the url.
- To get the url, right click on the photo and select "Copy Image URL."
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Open the url in a new tab. The picture you want to check should be displayed on the screen.
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In a new tab, navigate to Google Images . On the right hand side of the search bar, you will see a camera icon. Click this to search by image, rather than by text.
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Enter the image you want to check. You can simply enter the url that you copied earlier. Or, if you've saved the image to your computer, you can upload it using the "Upload an Image" option. Once you've entered the image, click Search to perform the search.
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Look through the search results. Look for the same image posted on a website, especially if it's clearly a picture of someone else, like a celebrity. With common images and images of popular people, this search is likely to return quite a few results which will prove useful to you.
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Report the image on Facebook. If you've determined that the image is spam or abusive content, report it on Facebook using the drop down menu at the top right of the toolbar, available when you log in.
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Community Q&A
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QuestionHow can I know if a fake account is using my photos?UnlimitedCharactersCommunity AnswerOpen up the website tineye.com. Drag your Facebook profile photo into the center of the page, and then it will tell you if the photo's been used or not.
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QuestionI found a profile with the same name as my boyfriend. The profile picture is of a woman I don't know, and no other info in it. Who created it? I suspect it is fake.Community AnswerAsk your boyfriend if he created the profile and who the girl is. If he doesn't know, then the profile is most likely unrelated to him. Many people on Facebook can share the same name.
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QuestionI ran the photo through reverse-image search and the results did not bring any other site or places where the photo was used. So, is it safe to assume that a profile image of that person is genuine?Community AnswerYes, it is likely genuine. However, that doesn't mean you can trust them with private information based only on the photo. Many people use real photos of themselves on their profile.
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Tips
- Avoid accepting friend requests from people you don't know personally, and this will likely never be a problem.Thanks
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Warnings
- This is not a surefire method of finding out whether a picture is fake. If the person is clever, they can easily use a fake photo that won't return any Google image search results. Be careful and take precautions whenever you interact with others online.Thanks
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About This Article
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 115,465 times.
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