Is it a Crime to Make a Fake Facebook Account

[lawfacts]

If somebody creates a fake Facebook account, not under somebody's real name but under a made-up name, and then uses that account to post fake reviews, is that a crime? If somebody uses a series of fake Facebook accounts to post negative reviews about a business, can they be criminally prosecuted? The business is in New York.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If the accounts are fake, report them to Facebook. If Facebook agrees, it will close the accounts.

Beyond that, if this is something you are thinking about doing, I suggest that you choose a more honest approach to reviewing a business. If this is about your business, you will find that it is exceptionally difficult to prove that one person is behind the activity -- identifying the person and putting together a case. You can speak to a lawyer about the cost of starting a John Doe lawsuit, trying to get account and IP information from Facebook, the odds of getting a favorable verdict and how much it might be for, and the odds of actually recovering money from whomever the person turns out to be.

The criminal law question depends on the state in which the person is located, but you should not expect that a criminal law agency will be interested in investigating a dispute over reviews for an out-of-state business (or even if it turns out that you're in the same state), even if there's a state criminal statute that might arguably apply.