On some occasions we may find ourselves in the situation in which we do not know if a profile that has followed us or that has sent us a follow request (if we have our Instagram profile as private) is a true profile or if it is actually false. For this reason, this time we are going to explain how to tell if an Instagram profile is fake or if it is not, for which we are going to give you a series of tricks that you must take into account in order to detect it.
Instagram has become the most used social network in Spain, and as has always happened in all social networks, there are always people who hide their identity under false profiles, an action that they can carry out for very different purposes. It is common to find this type of profile and there are several ways to detect whether it is a false profile or not.
How to know if an Instagram profile is fake
Below we are going to explain different actions that you can carry out to find out if an Instagram profile is false and we recommend that you take them into account if you have doubts about the veracity of a user:
Download your profile picture
The first indication to know if an account is fake is its profile picture. The vast majority of fake profiles do not have any photos, although other users who create fake accounts are betting on taking images that they extract either from other Instagram accounts or from internet image banks.
To check if it is a false profile based on your profile photo, the first thing we must do is download your profile photo, for which you can use one of the different extensions and applications that allow us to do so and that can be found quickly on the net.
Once you manage to download the profile image of that possible false account, you must go to Google Images and search by uploading the image. As soon as the image is uploaded, all the results of pages where the same photograph is found will be shown.
From there we can see if it is a photo that has been taken from the internet, either from a social profile or from a web page.
Check your followers
After you have checked your profile picture, if you are looking how to tell if an Instagram profile is fake you can resort to reviewing their followers and their quality. If a profile is fake it is likely that it has very few real followers.
You just have to enter your followers and see how many you have and where they come from. If these followers have unusual names or are not from the same country, it is very likely that whoever is behind the account has chosen to buy followers to look real.
It is always advisable to take a look at this aspect, as it can be a great indication of whether an account is fake or not.
See account activity
Sometimes accounts are created exclusively to talk to a person or to observe their posts, so you can also take a look at the profile activity on their Instagram account.
In the "likes" tab, in the Following section, you will be able to see if any activity of this user is shown or not. In the event that it has publications, you can see if it has comments and the number of likes for them.
If you see a profile with no activity, it is very likely that it is a fake account.
Do you suspect who it may be? Know your email or phone
A very unknown trick for many people when it comes to seeing who is behind a false account, if we suspect it, we can use their phone or email. Although Instagram does not allow access to this information unless that person shows it publicly, you can find out by choosing to seek password recovery.
In this case we will have to add a new Instagram account in the application and click on I have forgotten the password. There we proceed to enter the username of the false account and different methods to recover the password will appear on the screen, by SMS, by email or by Facebook.
Selecting either of the two options will allow us to know if the person we suspect is behind her or at least have a key piece of information, since a message will appear on the screen that will notify us that the platform has sent an SMS or an email to a phone or email address. Although, for privacy and security reasons, the platform only shows the beginning and end of the phone number or e-mail, this can help us when it comes to knowing if it is that person we suspect who may be behind the account.
This is one of the best ways to how to tell if an Instagram profile is fake, although you can only resort to it in those cases in which you have suspicions of people whose email or phone you have.
Thanks to these little tricks you will be able to have clear evidence that it is a false profile and not a real one, although in the vast majority of cases just by looking at your profile you can clearly see that it is a non-real account and even on many occasions just by looking at your username and profile photo.
In any case, to protect your privacy, it is recommended to always have a private account, since this way you can have full control over the people who can see your publications, as well as being able to examine each profile that sends you a follow-up request before to accept it, thus clearing any doubts you may have about whether it is a real person or an identity that is completely false.