Facebook banned 2.19 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of 2019. The company revealed the figures in its third Community Standards Enforcement Report.
5% of Monthly Facebook Accounts Are Fake
The report showed that Facebook banned 1.2 billion fake accounts in the final quarter of 2018. That figure almost doubled in the next quarter to something equivalent to the company’s entire user base. In a blog post outlining the data, Facebook’s Vice President Integrity Guy Rosen said that Facebook “estimated that 5% of monthly active accounts are fake.”
“The amount of accounts we took action on increased due to automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time,” he explained.
Lagging Behind on Handling Hate Speech
The report covers violations of Facebook policy areas: adult nudity and sexual activity, bullying and harassment, child nudity and sexual exploitation of children, fake accounts, hate speech, regulated goods, spam, global terrorist propaganda and violence, and graphic content. Mr. Rosen said that the company proactively detected 95% of the content it took action on in six of these policy areas. That number was 65% for hate speech, up from 24% just over a year previously. In total Facebook removed 4 million hate speech posts in the first quarter of 2019.
Yes, but the big problem is real accounts that spread fake news, hoaxes, and other data mines.