Thinking Taxonomically about Fake Accounts: Classification, False Dichotomies, and the Need for Nuance

Abstract: It is often said that war creates a fog in which it becomes difficult to discern friend from foe on the battlefield. In the ongoing war on fake accounts, conscious development of taxonomies of the phenomenon has yet to occur, resulting in much confusion on the digital battlefield about what exactly a fake account is. This paper intends to address this problem, not by proposing a taxonomy of fake accounts, but by proposing a systematic way to think taxonomically about the phenomenon. Specifically, we examine fake accounts through both a combined philosophical and computer science-based perspective. Through these lenses, we deconstruct narrow binary thinking about fake accounts, both in the form of general false dichotomies and specifically in relation to the Facebook's conceptual framework "Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior" (CIB). We then address the false dichotomies by constructing a more complex way of thinking taxonomically about fake accounts.