Tips on how to tell someone is a real person online.

Some of my thoughts on how to tell real people and friend requests from fake "people on Facebook."

Fake people look like real people as they try to be good at being imposters. An easier way to tell is from content on their Facebook pages. Little content is a red flag.

Content that is repetitive, commercial or related to dating can be red flags. The stuff that is often cookie cutter or following a script that leads to money, sex, or "relationships."

A good sign for the page to be about a real person is variety of content, interesting topics, possibly politics and stuff about a local area. A page that is grounded in locality, rather than some national, or worldwide promotion. Local community things from any locality is usually a sign of real.

Another good sign is a page from someone you have had other connections with, such as face to face contact, or another type of connection.

I'll click on the person's profile to see what they post to their wall. It is good if the wall is set to "public" so it can be seen by all Facebook users. Then one can brows it.

If you can't see much before friending a person, it's a red flag, but one can friend, look at the wall and then unfriend, I guess, if the wall looks fake.