If you’ve observed a Facebook account – especially Corporate –
suddenly expand overnight or been promised ‘Facebook Likes’ in
24 hours, well now Facebook explains why.
The company, in filings this week, has confirmed there are more
than 83 million fake users on the social network as 8.7% of its 955
million active users might not be real.
This follows aggressive reporting from the BBC that pointed out
disrepancies in the Facebook system and which the company
promptly denied.
See excerpts from the BBC report today:
Duplicate profiles made up 4.8% of the fakes, user-misclassified
accounts amounted to 2.4%, and 1.5% of users were described as
“undesirable”.
The estimate came at a time of growing concern about the value of
marketing on the platform.
In total, the company said it estimated there were 83.09 million fake
users, which it classified in three groups.
The largest group of “fakes” were duplicates, which the company
defined as “an account that a user maintains in addition to his or
her principal account.”
Others were described as “user-misclassified” where, Facebook
explained “users have created personal profiles for a business,
organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet”.
Finally, “undesirable” accounts were profiles deemed to be in
breach of Facebook’s terms of service. Typically, this means
profiles which have been used for sending out spam messages or
other content.
Facebook, whose business model relies on targeted advertising, is
coming under increased scrutiny over the worth of its advertising
model which promotes the gathering of “likes” from users.
When a BBC investigation last month concluded that a rash of fake
profiles was a cause for concern for Facebook advertisers, the
social network was dismissive.
“We’ve not seen evidence of a significant problem,” a spokesman
told us.
Now its own figures show that more than 80 million of its global
audience may be in effect worthless to advertisers – either
duplicate accounts, or spammers or perhaps cats and dogs.
The problem is particularly acute in developing countries like
Indonesia and Turkey where Facebook is enjoying rapid growth.
A number of advertisers have been challenging Facebook to prove
that the clicks they are receiving on their ads are “real” – these
figures will provide them with added ammunition.
“We generate a substantial majority of our revenue from
advertising,” the company said in its filing.
“The loss of advertisers, or reduction in spending by advertisers
with Facebook, could seriously harm our business.”
Last month, the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones
set up a fake company called VirtualBagel to investigate allegations
of fake “likes”.
His investigation found that the large majority of “likes” for the
fake firm originated from the Middle East and Asia.
Many users appeared to be false, such as “Ahmed Ronaldo” –
apparently a Cairo-based user who is employed by Spanish
football club Real Madrid.
Last week, digital distribution firm Limited Press alleged that, based
on its own analytics software, 80% of clicks on its advertisements
within Facebook had come from fake users.
In a post on its Facebook page, the company said: “Bots were
loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried
contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t reply.



Source: www.ynaija.com/we-have-more-than-83-million-fake-users-facebook/

There is no socialnetwork or online forum without fake users challenge.

mrperfect: There is no socialnetwork or online forum without fake users challenge.

Yeah, but this is too much for one forum.

Internet marketers

It cool really seeing them giving out the estimated total ghost members. It is inevitable for all online social platforms. Nairaland should have a very high value on that as well I guess (probably over 400,000 )

Blugreen: It cool really seeing them giving out the estimated total ghost members. It is inevitable for all online social platforms. Nairaland should have a very high value on that as well I guess (probably over 400,000 )

Lol. That was why that fbk guy became suddenly very wealthy.

At least they're admitting it, unlike a particular forum i know of.

tpia1: At least they're admitting it, unlike a particular forum i know of.

Which one?