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 the 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, the activity persisted, following which the lawsuit was filed by the social media giant.

"We previously suspended accounts associated with the defendants and formally warned them in writing that they were in violation of our Terms of Use, however, their activity persisted," said Facebook.

Facebook said it wants to send a message fraudulent activity is not tolerated and Facebook will protect the integrity of its platform. As a result, the company facing a lawsuit can no 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.

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Last but not the least, Facebook said it will also prevent a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other California laws for distributing fake likes on Instagram in spite of Facebook suspending their accounts and revoking access.

Here's what Facebook has to say:

"The inauthentic activity has no place on our platform. That’s why we devote significant resources to detecting and stopping this behaviour, including blocking the creation and use of fake accounts and using machine learning technology to proactively find and remove the inauthentic activity from Instagram."

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

Facebook filed a lawsuit against Social Media Series Limited, a company run by Arend Nollen, Leon Hedges, and David Pasanen. for years, they 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.

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

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