Someone copying the name of another person on social media is annoying, but I don’t think of it as hacking. Anyone can make an account. Social media companies made verification methods precisely because clones are easy to make and when do so about someone famous, it could lead to a devaluation of a brand.
For everyone else, scammers can clone anyone. This happens quite a bit on Facebook as people operate in virtual walled gardens. And it’s easy to trick people with these scams.
Protect yourself
To protect yourself, limit who can see your friends. If the scammer can see them, then they know who to send messages to claim their alter ego of you has a problem and needs financial assistance. Hiding them makes you valueless to them. Of course, having thousands of friends and interacting with hundreds daily might make it difficult to suss out how to target.
Go to:
- Settings & privacy
- Privacy Center
- Audience
- Profile Information
You want “Who can see your friends list on your profile?” to be set to something restrictive like “Only me.” You could use a small number of trusted friends.
While you are there, you might set “Who can see the people, Pages and lists you follow?” to “Only me.” This is the kind of stuff a scammer might use to convince a friend they are you.
Other systems
This isn’t better on X, Bluesky, or the Fediverse. Anyone can create an account. The only way to fight it is verification. That’s hard as it means expensive systems in place to ensure people can only create accounts for names they are entitled.
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