Trickers exploit vulnerability in censorship

Tricksters do this by exploiting Facebook’s vulnerability in censorship. They send a request form to Facebook, informing them that the owners of the targeted Facebook accounts have passed away.

To deceive Facebook’s censorship team, they show papers such as death certificates, obituary notices with stamps, and identity cards.

“Facebook is just a social network, checking the legitimacy of documents is not their job. It is easy to cheat Facebook,” said Phan Van Khai, a service provider.

There is a community of tricksters in Vietnam specializing in providing this kind of service. The members of the community share tricks to cheat Facebook, and offer to sell obituary notices and death certificates with warranty provisions.

BN advertised that he provides A-to-Z service and provides ‘high-quality certificates of deaths with the stamp of commune authorities’.

Each certificate of death or obituary notice is sold for VND100,000-200,000.

“The documents are expensive because it is hard to buy them in the market. Some service providers share templates in photoshop files. You just need to change the names of the account owners in the file. However, it is difficult to find a printing service,” said Nhat Truong, a death certificate seller from Ha Dong district in Hanoi.

Memorialized accounts are a place for friends and family to gather and share memories after a person has passed away. Facebook will accept memorialized accounts if there are requests from friends or family members.

When these accounts are approved, the successor (selected by the account holder) will be able to pin the article, reply to friend invitations, and update cover photos and avatars. In the special request section, attackers can ask to close the user's account, saying that that the account owner has died.

“To get approval from Facebook, attackers have to submit documents to prove the death of the accounts’ owners. The documents can be bought from tricksters,” Truong said.

On average, the cost of killing one Facebook account is between VND2 million and VND5 million. Less known tricksters provide services for VND200,000. 

The victims of the tricks still cannot find ways to protect themselves. In principle, Facebook members can make complaints about false requests on memorialized accounts. However, the policy apparently is ineffective.

RELATED NEWS

Businesspeople whose Facebook pages get thousands of likes

Facebooker investigated for posting monkey-killing photos on personal page