Why 'Liking' Facebook virals makes scammers rich

[snopes]

Facebook users who've clicked viral links such as 'Click This if You Hate Cancer' could be in for a nasty surprise.

The links - and others such as 'click this picture and see what happens' do nothing except make cyber-scammers rich.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/facebook-sp...-revealed.html

[Richard W]

One of my friends shared that one with the bear just a couple of days ago. I hadn't realised there was more to it than simply laughing at the gullible. I must admit I clicked the picture just to see how many posts there were saying "Jump" "Jump" "Jump" - a surprising number, and nobody I saw pointing out not to bother. (I didn't either, as I didn't want my name on it anywhere).

That makes sense though - it's quite cunning, and more subtle than simply manufacturing accounts to do it. Somebody at the BBC did an experiment with an advert and an almost empty page for "virtual bagels" just to see what response it would get, and whether the advertising got any useful response. They got loads of likes, but most seemed to be from fake accounts in a cluster of random countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18819338