Hordes of Fake Users Scamming Social Media, eCommerce Sites

Hordes of Fake Users Scamming Social Media, eCommerce Sites:
"Inside the World of Fake User Accounts
The online hook-up site Ashley Madison is reportedly overrun by fake accounts.
Most men are real users, but most of the accounts claiming to represent women apparently are fake.
The dating app Tinder also has fake user accounts set up to lure real users off the app and onto another site or app where they can be scammed with cons, identity thieves or malware, according to researchers at Symantec and Panda Security.
Many of these fake accounts are used by spambots, which reportedly imitate the speech patterns of flirtatious women, and sometimes men.
Another reason to create fake accounts is to post phony online reviews.
Amazon recently filed lawsuits against three sellers for using sock puppet accounts to post fake reviews.
They posed as consumers but were in fact "reviewing" their own products.
And these sellers were allegedly prolific—some 30 to 45 percent of the companies' reviews were fake. The lawsuits are nothing new, according to Amazon, which claims to have sued more than 1,000 fake-review posters.
...Every recent American presidential election is attended by the creation of massive numbers of fake social media accounts to astro-turf public opinion in favor of one candidate or another..."