Selling fake likes, shares and followers on Instagram lands three people into a million-dollar lawsuit

Selling fake likes, shares and followers on Instagram turned out to be worst nightmare for a New Zeland-based company after Facebook filed a million-dollar lawsuit. Facebook and Instagram sued three individuals in New Zealand for providing fake likes, views and followers to Instagram users. Despite being warned for violating Facebook's Terms of Use, activity persisted, following which lawsuit was filed by social media giant.

"We previously suspended accounts associated with defendants and formally warned m in writing that y were in violation of our Terms of Use, however, ir activity persisted," said Facebook.

Facebook said it wants to send a mess fraudulent activity is t tolerated and Facebook will protect integrity of its platform. As a result, company facing a lawsuit can longer engaging and profit by selling fake likes, views and followers on Instagram. Facebook is also preventing a violation of its Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.

READ | Facebook is finally cracking down on personality quiz apps that collect a massive amount of data on users

Last but t least, Facebook said it will also prevent a violation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and or California laws for distributing fake likes on Instagram in spite of Facebook suspending ir accounts and revoking access.

Here's what Facebook has to say:

" inauntic activity has place on our platform. That’s why we devote significant resources to detecting and stopping this behaviour, including blocking creation and use of fake accounts and using machine learning techlogy to proactively find and remove inauntic activity from Instagram."

READ | Instagram might stop showing 'likes' count on your posts in future

"Today’s lawsuit is one more step in our ongoing efforts to protect people and prevent inauntic behaviour on Facebook and Instagram," Facebook added.

Facebook filed a lawsuit against Social Media Series Limited, a company run by Arend llen, Leon Hedges, and David Pasanen. for years, y kept showing contempt for Facebook's requests to stop selling fake likes, shares and followers through websites with names like Likesocial.co and IGFamous.net.

lawsuit filed by Facebook in US court is looking to put an end to this illicit behaviour. Facebook is also expecting to be paid dams for manipulating Instagram's platform.

According to a screenshot shared by Verge, users could purchase between 50 and 2,000 fake Instagram likes for between $10 and $99 per week. Interestingly, LikeSocial.co website has w been taken down (apparently for maintenance).