WHAT kind of bastard doesn't hate cancer? Or respect soldiers? Or like kids?

An evil bastard, that’s who. That’s why your Facebook friends ‘like’ all those posts about people they don’t even know. To show they care.



But chances are they’re being scammed – someone is ‘farming’ their ‘likes’ and could be making money out of it.

The latest viral post infecting feeds is Mallory. It’s a cute picture of a young girl with this caption: "This is my sister Mallory. She has Down syndrome and doesn't think she's beautiful. Please like this photo so I can show her later that she truly is beautiful."

Awwww. Nice sentiment. But if you put the image of Mallory into Google Images she pops up on dozens of sites, including one where a natural healing advocate called Terri Johnson says it’s her nine-year-old daughter Katie (Ms Johnson hasn’t responded to news.com.au’s queries).

The original post seems to have disappeared from Facebook but ‘Mallory’ lives on as people repost and share.

Then there’s the heart-wrenching before and after picture of a wounded soldier with the caption "Like if you respect him, ignore if you don’t respect him".



This is a young marine named Merlin German who was left with burns over 97 per cent of his body when a bomb exploded in Iraq. He endured more than 100 surgeries and procedures and became known as the "miracle man". Sadly he died in 2008 and now his image is being used to "farm" Facebook likes and monetise them.





There’s also the ‘click if you hate cancer’ posts. Or the ‘click if you think this guy’s a hero’ posts. Some of these get millions and millions of likes.

So what’s going on? Well, in the social media age, every eyeball, follow, or like has value, and someone’s out to get yours.

Some of them may be genuine. Some may just be crazy kids getting a kick out of watching the likes skyrocket. Some may link through to sites that you really don’t want to go to.

And some of them are making cold hard cash.

Daylan Pearce from Next Digital, Australia’s biggest independent digital agency, says Facebook has an algorithm that helps posts go viral – you can read about it on his website.

Build up enough likes and people can then sell the page to someone else who can use the well-liked page for whatever they want.

Or it’s just a tricky marketing technique – there’s a US online community called CafeMom that has gathered more than 1.3 million likes with the line "Click ‘like’ if you love your kids!".



Obviously only negligent parents wouldn’t join that one.

Social media expert John Lenarcic, a lecturer at RMIT’s School of Business, IT and Logistics, called it "'like' farming". He said it was similar to how gamers "gold farm" – poor kids spent all day in virtual worlds, like Second Life, earning lots of virtual dollars, which they can then sell for cold hard cash in the real world to people who don’t have the time to play all day.

Mr Pearce said whether viral posts are for profit or exposure, they’re still “social spam”. He said it added to the pollution of Facebook already created by sponsored posts – they’re the ones that tell you about the pages your friends have liked, and you can’t hide them without also hiding your friend.



“If it’s meant for profit or just maximum reach – it’s still encroaching on my personal life,” he said.

“I (as do almost all Facebook users) use Facebook to interact with friends, not to get pictures from pages and businesses that I have no association at all with.”

On his website, he writes:

“Pro tip: If you do see a post about sick kids with rare cancer who lost all their family to a horrible house fire and if you don’t like it then 100 more children will get cancer from terrorists – it’s not real. Don’t click on it. Share this post within 10 seconds if you agree! Don’t share and you will get AIDs.”

