Fake account detection in social media using machine learning methods: literature review

Abstract

With the rapid development of emerging technologies in the industrial revolution 4.0 or 5.0, social media has become one of the social environments to carry out social activities, both socializing and advertising. However, since it is an open platform by nature, cybercrime occurrence in social media is inevitable. Currently, more than a million fake accounts are existing on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, intending to increase followers, spread hoaxes, and spam. On one hand, it is difficult to manually eliminate these accounts on social media platforms. On the other hand, research on automatic fake account detection has been carried out for more than a decade. This study provides literature reviews aiming to deliver information about several methods and machine learning algorithms with the performances measured in identifying fake accounts on three well-known social media platforms: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.