Facebook removes billions of fake accounts

The social network has invested heavily in finding and taking down accounts crafted to deceive people about where information is originating, particular when spread as part of coordinated campaigns with political or social agendas. This is what CNA reported.

Facebook on Wednesday (Nov 13) said it has taken down about 5.4 billion fake accounts this year,along with millions of posts depicting child abuse and suicide, in a sign of the persistent battle on social media against manipulation and misinformation.

Between April and September, Facebook said it took down 3.2 billion fake accounts.

Amid growing efforts to create fraudulent accounts, Facebook said it has stepped up its defenses and often removes the accounts within minutes of being created.

“We have improved our ability to detect and block attempts to create fake, abusive accounts,” the Internet firm said in its latest transparency report.

“Facebook’s apps have a combined total of billions of users across the world that use the apps at least once a day.  “

“We can estimate that every day, we prevent millions of attempts to create fake accounts using these detection systems.”

Facebook believes that fake accounts – where someone pretends to be a person or entity which does not exist – represented about 5 per cent of its worldwide active users during the second and third quarters of this year.