Celebrated local artists are increasingly irked by rampant copycat Facebook accounts where creators post nonsensical, provocative, slanderous content, and then resell them to the artists for exorbitant prices.

A Google search for Mai Phuong Thuy, Miss Vietnam 2006, will instantly yield dozens of Facebook accounts with plenty of her photos and information.

Apart from hugely annoying Thuy, who was unaware of the existence of such accounts, this has also baffled fans, as they can’t tell which Facebook account was created by Thuy herself.

Except for a few cases in which the artists’ fans form Fanpages and Facebook accounts out of admiration for them, with or without the artists’ consent, most pages are created by people who don’t mean well.

The most common ‘prey’ are famous singers, actors, models and beauty queens, who unknowingly ‘own’ dozens or even hundreds of such accounts.

The accounts are sometimes offered to the artists for exorbitant prices, or are used to advertise miscellaneous products, blast the artists’ opponents, or post the artists’ personal, sensitive information.

One of Mai Phuong Thuy’s fake accounts advertises a product made by a competitor of the company she’s acting as a representative for. Vietnam Idol 2010 Uyen Linh’s fake accounts are packed with sex, gay stories and photos, while Dinh Tien Dung, an emerging personality, ‘owns’ an account which contains anti-government statements.

The latest victim, veteran comedian Minh Vuong, is frustrated that her fake account is used to raise money for ‘charity’.

“I have no control whatsoever over what is posted using the account. I’ve negotiated with the account owners several times to transfer the ownership to me, but they asked me to pay them dozens of million of dong,” Vuong lamented.

The most common ploys include creating the accounts, and maintaining their popularity by increasing views with personal, sensational information and outrageous statements attached to the artists, before selling them to the artists who try desperately to shut them down, or to online advertising companies.

Legally protected but …

According to lawyer Ngo Quoc Viet, from An Hung Law Co., such behavior is strongly penalized by law, with penalties ranging from fines of VND10-20 million (up to US$962) to criminal punishment plus compensation for the victims.

Facebook’s representative in Vietnam said that Facebook has protective programs for its clients as long as they report the offences and prove that those accounts are fake.

However, in reality, the account fakers typically use spam sim cards and are elusive, while the victims usually can’t afford the time to track them down and take them to court.