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Most social media users run across frauds at least once every week

Even while social media users are becoming better at recognising frauds, many of them still need to be on guard, according to a survey conducted exclusively.

First, we inquired as to which social media channels the participants frequented. Just around 80% of Internet users are engaged on Facebook, making it the most popular social networking site. Next in line was Instagram with 68.1%, while a tie for third place was established between Tiktok (49.8%) and Twitter (47.5%).

The remaining two major platforms were LinkedIn and WhatsApp, each with 35.8% and 33.4% of the population. Of those polled, 6.6% reported utilising other social media sites while 3.7% reported using none.

Avoiding Scams

The data on how often people fell for social media frauds were rather close to equal. A little over a third of respondents claimed they saw them every day, and slightly more than a quarter said they saw them every week. Just 15% of respondents claimed they did so every month, while 29% said they did so less often than once a month.

Since the epidemic began, online scams have increased, hitting a high point in 2021 and continuing into this year. As may be expected, fraud increases during peak shopping times like Black Friday and the holidays.

Fortunately, most people (30.9%) and most people (34.4%) felt confident or extremely certain that they could recognise them. Only 10% said that they weren’t at all, and a quarter claimed they were.

But other surveys suggest that a sizeable portion of social media users fall for common frauds like phishing and phoney gift card offers, so that optimism may be misguided.

Scams using cryptocurrency have gained popularity on social media platforms in recent years. Ads for fraudulent exchanges may tout “investment possibilities” that, if taken advantage of, would result in a significant financial windfall for the victim. To further entice the public, some have even distributed recordings of Elon Musk talking about cryptocurrency.

There are, however, several methods available for identifying social media hoaxes. If something seems too good to be true, that’s because it usually is. You should also verify that you are being sent to the legitimate business’s website by checking the link’s URL before you click it.