Abstract

The rapid proliferation of social media has expanded its use across diverse domains, including commerce, business promotion, political messaging, education, and entertainment. However, this upsurge in social media activity has also attracted malevolent actors who exploit these platforms for illicit activities. This research, as discussed in the paper, is dedicated to discerning the user and societal attributes essential for the identification of fraudulent reviews, misinformation, and rumors disseminated on social media channels. Moreover, the study offers insights into the potential applicability of this research for recognizing illicit user cohorts, analyzing the influence of political ideologies, and assessing the impact of military users aligned with specific ideologies. The paper additionally underscores the significance of intrusion detection mechanisms on social media and introduces a deep neural network-based model for the identification of counterfeit profiles, as well as distinguishing between active and inactive profiles in the realm of social media.