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Catfishing is a rising problem over social media sites. It is when someone uses someone else identity or creates a false identity to lure someone into a relationship. This relationship is often a romantic one but it can also be a business one. Catfishers, create not only a new identity online, but the create circles of friends and profiles on many different social media sites for believability. This new phenomenon is extremely dangerous, and makes social media now a risky place to communicate, engage and play over. However, this is just one example of how social media is shaping out world and what it allows us to do.

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Catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a sockpuppet presence or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim for abuse or fraud. Catfishing is often employed for romance scams on dating websites. The practice may be used for financial gain, to compromise a victim in some way, or simply as forms of trolling or wish fulfillment. Catfishing media has been produced, often featuring victims who wish to identify their catfisher. Celebrities have been targeted, which has brought media attention to catfishing practices.

The modern term originated from the 2010 American documentary . In the documentary, it is mentioned how there are people in everyone's lives who keep them alert, like the myth of how live cod were shipped with catfish in the same tanks to keep the cod active, ensuring the quality of the cod. This myth originated in the fiction writing of Henry Nevinson (1913, Essays in Rebellion) and Charles Marriott (1913, The Catfish).

Catfishing has become more widely known throughout the subsequent decade, thanks to a television series which followed the main star of the movie, Yaniv (Nev) Schulman, helping other people investigate their possible catfish situation.

The term rose in popularity during an incident involving University of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o in 2013.

According to a Washington Post article the Rolling Stone University of Virginia rape hoax story may have been an example of catfishing.

Some online users have used catfishing to explore their gender and/or sexual identities. For example, on the MTV show , based on the documentary, a girl named Sonny connects with a male model named Jamison who is, in reality, Chelsea, a woman using her alternative identity to interact with other women in an online space.

Financial gain can be another motive of catfishing. In 2015, three girls created a fake social media profile and managed to steal $3,300 from the Islamic State, a terrorist group. They had been approached by a recruitment officer and asked for money to go to Syria. After being given the money, they immediately deleted their account and pocketed the cash for their own personal travel.

Catfishing can also be a tactic to stop criminals. In 2004, Dateline NBC produced the segment, To Catch a Predator, which documented undercover cops posing as minors online to catch pedophiles.

Catfishing is used for multiple reasons. An internet user uses a fake identity to persuade another to believe they are the person they portray. This often is used for relationships, such as the scenario in the movie Catfish. The person catfishing usually uses another real person's photos and life facts to make them appear as a real person. Often, the real person who is being used for the fake identity does not even know that they are having their pictures and name used. They are not aware that their identity was used to create these fake relationships online. The person uses catfishing in order to appear as a better version of themselves by using a fake identity. Their primary reason to appear as a fake person is to befriend the other person for a relationship or other sexual reasons. It can also be used as a way to cyberbully someone online. By using a fake identity, it is easy for the person to get away with bullying on the internet. Since they are using another person's identity or a made up identity, the person will not get in trouble and will not have any consequences. The cyberbullying cannot be traced back to them, which is a big reason why they use a fake identity in the first place. This type of cyberbullying has increased the number of suicides in teens over the past few years.

There are many dangers of catfishing. It can be used to attract a person from the Internet and allow them to meet them in person. The person catfishing can lure people to a place to kidnap, or hurt in any other way. It is a new way for sexual predators to interact with their victims and possibly harm. These sexual predators use their fake identity to talk to teens, allowing them to get close to them so that the victim will trust them. It is then easy for the predator to get information from the victim so that they can use that information to harm them. An example of this was the 2007 murder of Carly Ryan.

There are several ways people can spot a catfisher, all of which are imperfect. If a random person starts following or messaging a user, and the person's profile picture looks fake or too good to be true, then the person may be catfishing.[citation needed ] If the person messaging does not want to video chat, or keeps finding excuses to not meet up, they might be a catfisher as well.

The identity of an Australian actor, Lincoln Lewis, was used by an impostor over four years. The actions resulted in the suicide of one victim, who had at one point reached out to the real Lincoln Lewis as they had attended primary school together, so she was familiar with some aspects of his life that were discovered and exploited by the perpetrator. The female perpetrator operated from at least mid-2011 until arrested in mid-2016, and in early 2019 was found guilty of stalking six people.

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Catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a sockpuppet presence or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim for abuse or fraud. Catfishing is often employed for romance scams on dating websites.

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The truths about how depicting catfishers are.

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The dating scene has been changing over the last decade. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, approximately 6% of Internet users who are in a marriage or other committed relationship met online, compared to 3% who reported this in 2005. Additionally, 42% of Americans know someone who has used an online dating site or app, an increase of 11% from 2005, and 29% of Americans know someone who has met their partner through this medium, compared with 15% who made this claim in 2005.

This data represents a significant shift in the perception of online dating, suggesting that the stigma associated with the practice is dropping:

59% of Internet users feel that online dating is a good way to meet people (compared with 44% in 2005),

53% of Internet users feel that online dating is a good means of finding someone with shared interests (compared with 47% in 2005), and

21% of Internet users feel that employing an online dating service is a mark of desperation, which is down from the reported 29% in 2005.

Despite these signs of growing acceptance, an undercurrent of hesitation and uncertainty persists when it comes to online relationships:

54% of online daters believe that someone else has presented false information in their profile,

and 28% have been contacted in a way that left them feeling harassed or uncomfortable.

While some of us may Friend more discriminately than others, we live in a time where it's common to build online networks that include secondary and tertiary connections. So don't look so sheepish if you've ever added your friend's aunt's step-brother's son or a random bartender or significant other of a friend you haven't spoken to since high school to one of your online networks-you aren't alone! We've actually been taught that this makes us good networkers-even thought it overlooks quality in favor of quantity-because the objective is to cast as wide a net as possible when building a network. But in this social strategy, how do we know that anyone is who they claim to be?

And more importantly, could we spot a catfish if one swam into our network?
Casting a hook
The term catfish was made popular by the 2010 documentary film by the same name (which has also morphed into a series on MTV). It refers to a person who is intentionally deceptive when creating a social media profile, often with the goal of making a romantic connection. This deception can be elaborate, and may involve the use of fake photos, fake biographies, and sometimes fictitious supporting networks as well.

The documentary followed the online relationship between photographer Yanev "Nev" Shulman and a young woman named Megan, whom Nev "met" after receiving a painting of one his photographs from her younger sister Abby. Nev connected with Abby, and subsequently her family, over email, phone, and eventually Facebook. His relationship with Megan grew until discrepancies in the information she shared were revealed. When questioned, she was evasive, prompting more questions and leading to additional disappointments as Nev discovered that not everything was as it seemed. He traveled to her home where he learned that Abby's mother was actually playing the part of Megan. She fabricated an entire life on Facebook using strangers' pictures and their information. She even went so far as to have her fictitious characters interact with each other on Facebook to make it appear on though they were members of a real network.

In the television series, Nev documents the stories of people who have been in online relationships for lengthy periods of time without meeting the other person. They contact Nev because they are ready to take the next step or because something feels off and they want answers. He travels with one of the couple for the meeting, helping to highlight skeptical elements of the story along the way, asking them to question why the relationship has unfolded as it has. Sometimes things are what they appear to be and distance or time has kept the couple from formally meeting, but often there's an element of deception; for example, people may look nothing like their photographs or may be pretending to be of another gender or are in another relationship.

The web has had a reputation as a place where anonymity is permitted. However, social networking sites tend to encourage greater degrees of transparency. Users are required to create a profile, which helps to establish an online identity. Over time a user's sum total of online activities paint a picture of who that user may be but we don't always question this information. We tend to forget that we see what others want us to see when it comes to crafting an identity.

A catfish banks on this shortsightedness and shapes his or her profile(s) to serve us exactly what we want. They're emphatic, they're sympathetic, and they're like-minded. The manipulation is so subtle that we don't realize the ways in which the "click" that is the hallmark of a relationship is being orchestrated.
Pleasing to the eye
Catfish are successful because their actions mirror offline behaviors. We choose what we believe to be the best of ourselves to share with others. We highlight knowledge, skills, and tendencies that help establish our connection to particular social groups-and hopefully the person in front of us well. Sociologist Erving Goffman believed that this sort of editing of the self to shape the impression we make on others sits at the core of social interaction. We want to appear as similar as possible to the object of our interaction; acceptance secures our place within our networks.

This plays out online as well. Think about your Facebook profile photo, for example. How much time and thought did you invest in its selection? Did you think about how that photo represented you? You probably didn't pick a photo where you thought you looked badly. And if it was a particularly good picture, when was the last time you changed it? Do you still look like that person or are you choosing to represent yourself as the person you were in that moment?

I know I'm firing off a lot of questions, but the point is that these are exercises of representation. And within these exercises deception might actually help us create an image of ourselves that has mass appeal. This type of deception can be somewhat contained offline. After all, when you're face-to-face with someone, they have to support the image they're presenting. This isn't quite as true online-or rather, there's some flexibility that arises from the disjuncture between a user's profile and interaction with that user. Because it's not instantaneous, users have the opportunity to craft a specific image and adjust that image over time. We can plan and edit ourselves in this medium.

This becomes slightly more nuanced with online dating. Online dating profiles are designed to emphasize relatively personal data, including things like height, weight, age, and preferences. Users may feel pressured to alter this information to present what they perceive is their ideal self and maximize their attractiveness. Though there's a need to reconcile this self with reality and participants on these sites claim they are truthful, research has found that nine-out-of-ten online daters will fib about their height, weight, or age. Men are more likely to alter their height, perhaps because it is a reflection of status, while women are more likely to provide lower estimates on weight, likely because we place a high premium of desirability on the notion of "skinniness." Both genders will lie about age (though incidences of deception in this category are small). Online presentation in dating applications and social networks is guided by the possibility of a future offline meeting. This means users eventually have to come to terms with the image they craft online. In this regard, it's easy to explain discrepancies in weight and height as both can fluctuate. But age? Not quite as easy to get away with.

But before that offline meeting, users have to judge the information they see. Profiles in these settings are highly scrutinized against the measures by which users believe they will be judged themselves. For example, rampant misspellings or language misuse might be interpreted as a lack of interest or a lack of education. Writing style is also believed by some users to indicate personality, and care may be taken to adopt or avoid a certain tone-one user wanted to avoid sounding "cutesy" because she wanted to avoid people who might be looking for less serious relationships.

These types of deceptions allow online daters to create an ideal self. And that's no different from the selves we create on other social networking sites, or the selves we try to generate when we meet people in offline settings. However, we're kept honest to certain degree by the real-time interactions. This expectation of honesty helps us trust in the online networks that we build, particularly when it comes to secondary and tertiary contacts.
Don't tell fish stories where the people know you
But there are places online where the possibility of that offline meeting is minimized. For example, in MUDs where people are actively creating characters outside of themselves, there is little expectation of a real life meeting with the character you might interact with online. That character is free from any trait of its originator. It is free to hold any occupation, be any age, switch gender, and be an expert in anything. This freedom allows these spaces to be used for exploration, which is guided by the understanding that the character is not a person but a mask that's being employed.

These spaces are greatly different from social networks where you also have the expectation of interacting with an actual person. This expectation generates the trust that allows a catfish to infiltrate the network and survive. The degree of scrutiny of profiles and the effort of validation of identity are less on social networking sites than dating sites because the end goal is not necessarily an offline meeting. The assumption is that behaviors on the social networking site are uniform, so if the catfish adopts the social norms of the network (e.g., he or she must have a network of their own, which they will often fabricate), then the catfish can pass without attracting unwanted attention.

Why do they do it? The reasons are complex, but may be rooted in the "online disinhibition effect," where the potential for anonymity in online spaces reduces people's responsiveness to social and moral codes. There is a certain pleasure in deception-in knowing that you've managed to fool someone in some way. Online spaces mean that user don't always have to face the people they fool, so feelings like stress, tension, guilt and shame can be avoided as they explore who they might want to be or how far they can press a storyline. Catfish lean heavily on avoiding offline meetings. They paint a picture of busy-ness or tragedy that keeps them away even while they continue to emotionally feed the relationship with an other.

Catfish avoid detection by positioning themselves in a position of perceived referential power. They build relationships of confidence and trust, which are aided by the medium of social networks where users are encouraged to share information. Catfish appear just like everyone else; and it's much harder to believe that a friend would deceive you, so the tendency is to trust. It's rare that a user will try to verify the information offered by a catfish for these reasons.
The sea grows wider
This discussion is relevant because as online dating sites grow in popularity, the act of entering into a relationship online is also gaining acceptance. Social networking sites provide a rich research venue for people who are interested in getting to know someone romantically-and the information may be more honestly presented here than in online dating sites as we try to capture our lives through personal photos, shares, and Likes. According to Pew Internet, 41% of social network site users have used a social networking site to get more information about a potential partner, and 18% have Friended someone because they wanted to date them. As our culture encourages us to widen our online networks, it may be time to begin to emphasize quality over quantity.

Have you been catfished? How did you find out? What do you think the trigger signs are that not all is as it seems?

--

You might also like:
Creeping Connectivity: Work and Life in a Hyper-Connected World Don't read the comments! (Why do we read the comments when we know they'll be bad?) What does it mean when we need to take a break from Facebook? Oracles Past and Present: Our Means of Managing Information
References:

Caspi A, & Gorsky P (2006). Online deception: prevalence, motivation, and emotion. Cyberpsychology & behavior : the impact of the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society, 9 (1), 54-9 PMID: 16497118

Ellison, N., Heino, R., & Gibbs, J. (2006). Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11 (2), 415-441 DOI: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00020.x

Hancock, Jeffrey T. (2007--1--1) The truth about lying in online dating profiles. , 449. DOI: 10.1145/1240624.1240697

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Catfishing: The Truth About Deception Online

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The growing popularity of online dating The dating scene has been changing over the last decade. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, approximately 6% of Internet users who are in a marriage or other committed relationship met online, compared to 3% who reported this in 2005.

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This is Nev, he was a victim to a catfish relationship for a long period of time. He made a documentary with his brother about his experience which later lead him to making a television series name Catfish, which is what made the term and educated so many people of a topic that was barely spoken about.

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o

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ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

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ABC's 20/20 is the prime time news magazine program featuring David Muir. From newsmaker interviews, hard-hitting investigative reports, exclusives, compelling features and medical mysteries.

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o https://t.co/ubhvHhGjdE

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o pic.twitter.com/ubhvHhGjdE
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) December 9, 2017

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o https://t.co/ubhvHhGjdE

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ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.entities.urls[].description
ABC's 20/20 is the prime time news magazine program featuring David Muir. From newsmaker interviews, hard-hitting investigative reports, exclusives, compelling features and medical mysteries.

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o https://t.co/ubhvHhGjdE

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The most bizarre "catfishing" scheme? @DebRobertsABC' #ABC2020 hour even stuns @NevSchulman as “one of the most complicated, confusing #Catfish stories” the MTV star has ever heard. https://t.co/ZGewRPfd2o

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].title
ABC News – Breaking News, Latest News and Videos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.entities.urls[].description
ABC's 20/20 is the prime time news magazine program featuring David Muir. From newsmaker interviews, hard-hitting investigative reports, exclusives, compelling features and medical mysteries.

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Although there is a negative could around catfishing because it extremely harmful and dangerous. Not all scenarios are bad ones, BUT most are.

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Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”

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Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”

https://t.co/7CVyoaPxT1

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Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”https://t.co/7CVyoaPxT1
— Catfish (@CatfishMTV) October 19, 2017

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Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”

https://t.co/7CVyoaPxT1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”

https://t.co/7CVyoaPxT1

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Hey, you never know... ⚡️ “A catfishing story with a twist”

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Using epidemic from not just younger teens, but older people swell. Anyone can become a victim to catfishing and anyone can become one. This is the new epidemic and it does not matter what sex or age you are.

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Whether it's out of revenge, loneliness, curiosity or boredom, an emerging class of Internet predators cite dozens of reasons for scamming their way into romantic relationships with unsuspecting victims seeking love online.

By creating fake profiles on social networking sites, these predators trick people into thinking that they are someone else entirely. The fabricated life stories and photographs that they cobble together online often contain the experiences, friends, resumes and job titles that they wish were their own, providing a complete window into how these scammers want the world to see them - and how far they fall from those ideals.

The emergence of such elaborate social schemes online was brought to light in a shocking way in the 2010 documentary 'Catfish,' in which 28-year-old Nev Schulman fell in love with a gorgeous young woman's Facebook profile and her voice over the phone - both of which turned out to belong to a middle-aged wife and mother.

Schulman later turned the documentary into a show, where he helps others solve the mysteries of their online relationships.

The potential victims always come to Schulman with a similar list of questions for their online lovers: 'Why does he refuse to chat via web cam?'; 'Why is she never able to meet in person?'; and finally, 'Why does it just seem too good to be true?'

The documentary and the show has intrigued and shocked the nation, and its title has since been unofficially canonized into the English language.

Most recently, Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick used the term 'catfish' to describe a hoax that one of his football players apparently fell for.

'I would refer all of you, if you're not already familiar with it, with both the documentary called "Catfish," the MTV show which is a derivative of that documentary, and the sort of associated things you'll find online and otherwise about catfish, or catfishing,' Swarbrick told reporters Wednesday in describing the incident involving his star linebacker, Manti Te'o.

(MTV defines the term 'catfish' as a verb: 'Cat·fish [kat-fish]: To pretend to be someone you're not online by posting false information, such as someone else's pictures, on social media sites, usually with the intention of getting someone to fall in love with you.')

Swarbrick's comments were in reaction to reports that a heartbreaking story about the death of Te'o's girlfriend was all a lie.

The Hawaiian said during the 2012 season that Lennay Kekua, his girlfriend, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died.

The story of how Te'o and his girlfriend met had previously been chronicled in various news outlets and photographs of the girl were plastered all over the internet and in newspapers across the country.

Football fans were stunned and heartbroken, then, when they learned that the girl had died. The news triggered an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

But Lennay Kekua never actually existed, according to reporting by Dead Spin. In fact, Dead Spin's reports indicate that 'she' was actually a 'he' - and also a friend of Te'o's.

Amid claims that Te'o was in on the scam to get publicity, Te'o insists he was duped.

'This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online,' Te'o said. 'We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.'

In 'Catfish' creator Nev Schulman's case, he fell in love with a girl named Megan, a gorgeous blonde from Michigan.

He spent hours on the phone with Megan and even sent racy texts and messages to her about kissing her and having sex.

But months into the relationship, he began to grow suspicious about her identity.

He discovered that a song she had sent him, which she claimed to have written, was in fact a single released by another artist.

When a few other details didn't add up, he decided to surprise 'Megan' with a visit to her home in Michigan.

The person who met him at the door was Angela Wesselman, a middle-aged overweight mother who admitted to creating the profile for Megan - as well as orchestrating an entire network of friends and family members to make Megan seem more authentic. Angela said she was lonely and enjoyed the personal connection that the scam provided her.

She later said that she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Schulman was shocked and humiliated, but he also described feeling sad for Wesselman. He spent several days with her and her family trying to understand what drove her to concoct the elaborate scheme.

In his MTV show, Schulman continues searching for answers from 'catfishers' that he unites with victims of their schemes.

In the first episode, Sunny, a 21-year-old nursing student from Arkansas, has fallen in love online with a man named Jamison King. She has talked to him for months on Facebook and on the phone and she considers him to be her boyfriend.

The cameras are rolling as she shows up to Jamison's house in Alabama teeming with excitement about finally meeting the man of her dreams. But 'Jamison' turns out to be Chelsea, a young woman seeking female companionship.

Sunny is first crestfallen and then angry. She threatens to physically hurt Chelsea - a scene that is played out repeatedly in the show between scammers and their victims.

In another 'Catfish' episode, a young woman has created a fake online boyfriend for another woman whom she saw as competition for her own love interest.

The scammer said she created the profile out of spite and as she explained herself, the two women almost got into a fist fight before Schulman intervened.

A third episode reveals a man who didn't fabricate many facts about his life, but only misrepresented his appearance. He is severely overweight and said he didn't think his victim would give him a chance at a romantic relationship if he revealed his true appearance.

The circumstances that drive various 'catfishers' to fabricate entire lives and social circles differ greatly, but what ties them together in each episode is the satisfaction they claim to get out of having total control over the way that others perceive them.

It is a joy that typically springs from their inability to achieve the depth of human connection in reality that they can achieve online, according to their personal accounts.

When Chelsea was asked whether she would have continued posing as 'Jamison' had Schulman not intervened, she admitted she would.

'To be totally honest with you, I think I would have to say yes,' Chelsea said. 'It's different - going from basically talking to whoever you want to talk to, to whoever really just wants to talk to you.'

Catfish's Angela Wesselman speaks out

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'Catfishing:' The phenomenon of Internet scammers who fabricate online identities and entire social circles to trick people into romantic relationships

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Whether it's out of revenge, loneliness, curiosity or boredom, an emerging class of Internet predators cite dozens of reasons for scamming their way into romantic relationships with unsuspecting victims seeking love online. By creating fake profiles on social networking sites, these predators trick people into thinking that they are someone else entirely.

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It's difficult to trace the origin of most Internet phrases. There's debate over who first invented hashtag fingers or coined Internet-speak like "I can't even. I mean." But there's no argument over who first introduced us to catfish. In 2010, the documentary Catfish premiered at Sundance, and a cultural phenomenon was not only named, but truly christened.

To " catfish " is to "lure someone into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona." The person doing the deceiving is the catfish. Nev Schulman, the subject of the 2010 documentary, first brought viewers into the world of deceptive online relationships as he attempted to track down an Internet love. The woman who turned out to be someone else entirely, a prankster using a false identity, fake pictures, and invented biographical details to trick Schulman into thinking she was real-and really in love with him. It was a perfect Internet-age mystery, with romance and heartbreak to spare.

In 2012, Schulman and his friend Max Joseph spun their concept into a reality TV show on MTV. For three years now, Catfish: The TV Show 's rapt audience has watched Schulman and Joseph help weekly participants navigate the murky waters of Internet love, using a sampling of techniques to play detective in order to find, contact, and expose whoever is hiding behind that Facebook profile. (It almost always begins with a Facebook profile.)

Watching Catfish 's progression is like watching the Internet's progression. We all grow less naive over time.

Now three years on, Catfish: The TV Show is a hit. It returns to the airwaves tomorrow night, and as we watch the new episodes, it's worth asking: How has the show evolved as everybody gets smarter? Surely, the digital cuckolds have become harder to fool. And the catfish themselves have also discovered some new tricks. Really, watching Catfish 's progression is like watching the Internet's progression. We all grow less naive over time.

"My ability to navigate social media and my understanding of how to investigate and engage with people via the Internet has changed a lot over the last five years," Schulman says. "Some technical things we've picked up for sure, but in general, all of us have had a shift in how we use the Internet in general."

Schulman says the scope of how we represent ourselves has changed and grown-hugely. The social Web, he says, used to sort of serve as a business card or landing page, a sort of digital introduction. Now it's a way to catalog every single facet of our personalities.

Go back and watch the first season of Catfish for proof. In order to find the catfish (as fans of the show will know, this is the person "hiding"-the person searching to obtain the catfish's identity is referred to as the "hopeful") in question, the hosts would perform the simplest of Internet tricks. There's a formula: Facebook snooping, reverse image search, Googling a phone number. At the time, these methods ranged from totally obvious to fairly novel-but now, they're Internet 101. Now, the team has had to move beyond the basics.

"What's really interesting is not that we're using significantly different tools, it's just that they understand how the architecture of the Internet works so much better," says show producer David Metzler. "They aren't looking for an instant answer anymore. Before where they would take a number, they'd run it through places people wouldn't know function as search engines, like Facebook. They'll run a phone number through Facebook, get someone's page, put that page through Google, and eventually find something that gives them a hint. Now they dig much deeper."

New Internet, New Tricks

In the current season, it's obvious that Schulman and Joseph have acquired a much wider skill set. The duo still set up inside local coffee shops and hotel rooms, whip out their laptops, and go deep into the social Web-but with far greater resources to pull from. As Schulman puts it, "the Internet continues to grow as a character on the show."

The checklist for cracking a catfish reads like a crash course in the current state of Internet detective work. Instagram is now the first stop. "They go there before Facebook now," says Metzler. "It clues them in really quickly to information about the profile they are looking at. Numbers of followers, who's following. The other thing they do that's really basic but that clarifies things really quickly is see if a photo is in the square Instagram shape." That's genius: If it's not a square, chances are it's a screenshot, and thus a fake. "The hopeful is usually like, 'Oh shit, I should have noticed that.'"

Those who've kept on up on their Catfish:The TV Show will remember when one hopeful was trying to track down her irrational and fleeing Internet lover. After being blown off, the team had an idea: Check her Instagram account for anything geotagged and see if they could plot her house. Indeed, they could. (Instantly, the many written warnings about tagging your home on Instagram flooded back.)

"For three episodes, geotagging became the number one thing we were able to use," says Metzler. "Max was like, 'Let's check all the geotags on a photo!' and it gave you so much information, and at that point, the iPhone was still defaulting to having your geotags on."

It's Catfish moments like this that illustrate how the Internet is simultaneously becoming bigger and smaller. Does the proliferation of mobile technology and social services make it easier to find the catfish, or does it give the prankster more ways to hide?

It makes things infinitely easier, says Joseph. "You get better at analyzing the results," he says. "If a phone number you know can send and receive texts is listed as a landline, then you know it's a Google Voice number and not a landline. So you can start reading the results in a more educated way and putting things together faster."

Joseph says some of the investigations from season one took seven hours. Now, they come in at around two. The tools have improved, too. For-pay databases like Spokeo weren't used in season one, but they have since become a go-to resource for the duo.

One very practical thing the team does that most of the hopefuls don't think of: Crack a laptop. While a mobile lets you access just about every corner of the social web, really digging into the specifics of someone's profile, saving photos, keeping multiple tabs open-these things are better done on a computer. And that's something most teens-the show's primary participants-don't think to do. The smartphone is their world.

The Kids Are Not Alright

Of course, as search tools have gotten better and the investigative team has become more sophisticated, so too have the subjects who seek their aid. In season one, it's not unusual to see a hopeful with a cracked flip phone, no broadband access, or a computer without a webcam-something which becomes the eternal red flag as the inability to videochat makes the person easier to fool. Now, most of the show's hopefuls are Internet pros with Twitter, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

As the participants have gotten more net-savvy, Schulman says he's grown less sympathetic toward people who apply to be on the show. "There's some frustration on my behalf, because while I know it's my career and livelihood, I wish I could effectively work my way out of a job, so sometimes I get a little annoyed. Like, 'You didn't think it would be a good idea to do a little legwork on your own?'" I have to remember this show is still going not necessarily because people are lazy-it's because they don't want to do it, or they're afraid to do it alone."

While the show is mostly about the pull of Internet romance, there's also an underlying theme of personal online security. Watch one episode and you'll see how frighteningly easy it is for two well-trained dudes to uncover buckets of information. Max Joseph, who was absent for part of the recent season while he was directing the soon-to-be-released film We Are Your Friends, recently found himself on the other end of the game. Not long ago, someone cloned his wife's phone number and called him saying they were holding her hostage in his own home. Luckily it wasn't true, but it certainly gave him pause. "For the first time I went and looked myself up the way we look other people up and I found how much information about me is totally public-my phone number, my address. Within a few searches I found everything about myself, so that was frightening."

So, how much longer can a show about hiding yourself on the Internet last? What will happen when it becomes too hard to hide, or when new legal issues over assuming false personhood arises, or when our real-life selves are forcibly made to align with our Internet identities?

"I think it's harder to be a catfish," says Joseph. "It's harder and harder for us to make the show, which is interesting. There will be a moment in time where we'll look back at this Internet period and say, 'I can't believe that was legal then, there was this show called Catfish that explored the weird gray area of Internet fraud.'"

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The Life of an Internet Catfish Is Rough These Days

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It's difficult to trace the origin of most Internet phrases. There's debate over who first invented hashtag fingers or coined Internet-speak like "I can't even. I mean." But there's no argument over who first introduced us to catfish. In 2010, the documentary Catfish premiered at Sundance, and a cultural phenomenon was not only named, but truly christened.

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This starts online than is taken offline once a trust is formed.

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Austin has been sending Marvin some pretty naughty photos. See for yourself tomorrow night at 8/7c on Catfish: The TV Show!

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Post by MTVcatfish.

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While catfishers are using social media sites to harm people,there are many groups created on social media sites such as Facebook to stop them.

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Expose The Catfish. 1.3K likes. This page is created to Expose The CATFISH so that other people could be aware of fake profiles

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Although harsh to say, most of the time is a lonely, unhappy, less attractive person trying to engage and trick others.

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There are vast amount of social media sites that people can communicate though and engage with others. These sites makes it easy for catfishes to find their prey and escape their reality. Social media is not a lonely place and it is so easy to find someone to talk to. Which is it is so easy and accessible for catfishers.

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt https://t.co/sHrLs7xy7h

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt pic.twitter.com/sHrLs7xy7h
— 20/20 (@ABC2020) December 8, 2017

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt https://t.co/sHrLs7xy7h

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt https://t.co/sHrLs7xy7h

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#ABC2020 meets the most unassuming #Catfish schemer who investigators say tormented victims by impersonating numerous celebrities - TONIGHT at 10/9c https://t.co/yzeCaPJaJt

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Everyone uses social media, whether you are a political figure trying to gain votes, a activist trying to rally up a following, or just a model and basketball star trying to make it big. In this case it was 2 not so ordinary people a "model and basketball star trying to make it big" that got mixed up in a web of lies. Sites such as Instagram and Facebook are just avenues that leave people vulnerable.

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Shelly Chartier, 33, said going to jail for blackmailing helped her social anxiety

She catfished NBA star Chris Andersen and aspiring teen model Paris Dunn

Chartier created an online relationship between the two and would relay messages and pictures to each of them at her home in Easterville, Manitoba

Chartier pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and went to prison in 2015

She was released from prison in Ocober 2016 after 12 months

The woman who tricked NBA star Chris Andersen into a relationship with a 17-year-old says a her year in prison for blackmailing the rich and famous helped her come out of her shell.

Shelly Chartier, now 33, dropped out of school in sixth grade and spent years cultivating online personas. She lived in filth and never went to the doctor or dentist, causing her to lose most of her teeth.

She said prison helped ease her social anxiety and learn how to make eye contact with people.

The catfish lived an isolated life in the small village of Easterville, Manitoba, where she famously extorted Anderson and blackmailed then 17-year-old model Paris Dunn with nude photos in 2012. In 2015, Chartier pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud.

Scroll down for video

Chariter was also linked to the fake best friend of Anderson, known as Tom Taylor, who communicated between Anderson and the aspiring model.

Chartier said on ABC's 20/20: 'I went through a period where I didn't leave my house for 11 years.'

Posing as Andersen, Chartier messaged Dunn on Facebook: 'I said, 'Hey, it's Chris," Chartier said. 'And she said, "Oh my God."'

'And then I thought, "I have to get him to notice her," but I couldn't. So I just texted Chris from a different app and I said, "Hey," and he said, "Who are you?" and I said, "It's Paris," and he said, "How'd you get my number?" I said, "Facebook." He said, "Oh, OK."'

Chartier arranged a real-life meeting between the two by asking Dunn to fly from Los Angeles to Denver. They apparently had no clue they were communicating through a third party catfish.

Chartier then posed as the model's mother and blackmailed Andersen for $3,000 because Dunn was 17.

Chartier blames Dunn for the situation saying: 'Most people would also ask to talk to the person they were going to see [on the phone].'

The intricate and creepy plot upended the life of Andersen, who was dumped by the Denver Nuggets in 2012 when he was investigated as part of a child pornography probe - which was finally linked back to Chartier.

Andersen claims he was led to believe the teen was 21, however the age of consent in Colorado is 17 so he was not arrested.

Chartier pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and other crimes and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in October 2015. She was released in October 2016.

She married husband Rob Marku who she met online after she was arrested. She is currently out of prison is and on two years of probation.

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Catfish who duped NBA star and model says jail helped her anxiety

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Shelly Chartier, 33, said going to jail for blackmailing helped her social anxiety She catfished NBA star Chris Andersen and aspiring teen model Paris Dunn Chartier created an online relationship between the two and would relay messages and pictures to each of them at her home in Easterville, Manitoba Chartier

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Due to the show on MTV, creating a false identity online is known to everyone.However, this can be both negative and positive because although it is known across the social media's to protect your identity and to be safe while chatting online, someone people think "it won't happen to me". The topic is so widely spread that many people think that this epidemic is over, however it is. Like showed in the video below, people put their trust in random strangers that are met online. A simple Instagram account an be made in less than 10 minutes and it takes even less than that to upload photos.

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Some people just value or double think about who they are talking to online. Some just assume that they are protected while using social media sites.

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Catfishing a Girl (Social Experiment) - The Dangers of Social Media

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Catfishing a Girl - (Social Experiment) - The Dangers Of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment) PLEASE SHARE AND LIKE IF YOU ENJOYED THIS. Subscribe for new videos every Week!!

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Not all catfished relationships are just for the romantic aspect. Some catfishers want or need money and may ask for thousand.

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Why A Woman Sent Online Lover She's Never Met More Than $1.4 Million

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http://drphil.com Buy The 20/20 Diet: http://bit.ly/drphil2020diet Buy Life Code: http://bitly.com/LifeCodeDP Subscribe to Dr. Phil: http://bitly.com/SubscribeDrPhil LIKE us on Facebook: http://bitly.com/DrPhilFacebook Follow us on Twitter: http://bitly.com/DrPhilTwitter

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Facebook wants to crack down on catfishing

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Facebook wants to crack down on catfishing

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Facebook wants to crackdown on catfishing.

The social network is testing a new feature in India that could stop someone from stealing another person's identity. The tool gives users more say over who can download and share their profile pictures.

While the concept of catfishing is a widespread issue in many countries, it is a particular issue in India. Some women in India choose not to share profile pictures with their face because they're concerned with what will happen to the photo, according to Facebook .

"In India, we've heard that people want more control over their profile pictures, and we've been working over the past year to understand how we can help," the social media giant said in a blog post late Wednesday.

Users in India will soon be able to add a safety guard to profile pictures. If the setting is activated, others will not be able to download, share or send another person's profile picture via a Facebook message. The protected photo will show a blue border and shield around it.

Related: Facebook's global fight against fake news

The tool was announced ahead of its first-ever Facebook Communities Summit in Chicago for Group admins. In February, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,000 word manifesto detailing his plans to "build a global community," such as using artificial intelligence to crackdown on terrorist content and adding different perspectives and information to news feeds.

Facebook is also looking into ways users can more easily add designs to their profile pictures. Based on its preliminary research, people are at least 75% less likely to copy a picture when it has an extra design layer.

The term catfishing originated from the 2010 documentary "Catfish," which follows a young man's online relationship with a woman who's not who she says she is. The film inspired the popular MTV reality TV series "Catfish: The TV Show."

Related: Facebook wants to kill the password

Android userswill also be blocked from taking a screenshot of a user's profile picture on Facebook. It's unclear as of now if the feature will eventually roll out to iOS device users.

CNNMoney (New York) First published June 22, 2017: 10:04 AM ET

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Facebook tests tool to prevent catfishing

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The social network is testing a new feature in India that could stop someone from stealing another person's identity. The tool gives users more say over who can download and share their profile pictures. While the concept of catfishing is a widespread issue in many countries, it is a particular issue in India.

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Catfishers never meet their victim in person. Everything is done online which is why many people fall a victim for months even weeks.

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Social media has made it both easy and hard to continue to catfish. Social media has made it harder to catfish because the awareness of the topic. With all the blogs, tweets and Facebook groups being created many more people are becoming aware and taking the extra safety steps while on their social media accounts. However, social media is making it easier to Catfish people because like previously discussed in class, our privacy is dead. Everyone has photo that is somewhere online. Whether it be Facebook, twitter or google. There are so many hidden privacy rules that it is very easy for someone to find a picture and some information on another person so steal and use to catfish someone.

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Privacy needs to be upgraded on social media sites to deter and stop catfishing and scammers online.