Catfishing

Catfishing is a category of Impersonation where the user a false online persona or identity, typically on social media platforms or online dating websites, with the intention of deceiving others. People who engage in catfishing often use someone else's photographs, personal information, and even fictional stories to portray themselves as someone they are not.

A person can choose to catfish for a number of reasons - including seeking attention and affection, scams, revenge, or because they enjoy emotional manipulation of others.

Catfishing is most likely when platforms give broad leeway to users as to how to represent themselves and their identity, but don't have any features for validating that a user's representations of their identity are accurate. When platforms perform even basic steps to do identity validation (or make it challenging for users to create multiple accounts) it becomes much less likely that catfishing can or will occur.