This means that up to 13% of its 2.1 billion users – nearly 270 million accounts – are not authentic.
In fact, Facebook has been notorious for tampering with its audience reach data, as well as the reach patterns of its organic posts, in various countries in other ways too.
The reason for the increase in fake or duplicate accounts, said Facebook, was improved tools to identify fake accounts rather than a sudden upsurge in illegitimate users. In the report, Facebook attributed the updates to “a new methodology for duplicate accounts that included improvements to the data signals we rely on”, as per Business Insider.
Meanwhile, as the US investigates Russian interference in the elections, Facebook reportedly plans to tell the Senate judiciary committee that Russian-promoted content on the networking website reached around 126 million Americans during and after the elections. As per Facebook, 120 fake Russian-backed pages created 80,000 posts that reached 29 million Americans directly, but reached a much bigger audience through users following, liking and sharing the posts, says The Guardian.
In fact, the proportion of political interference through social media, particularly Facebook, has grown to the extent that the social networking website cracked down on 30,000 fake accounts before the presidential elections in France and also took down “tens of thousands” of fake accounts before the German elections, both held this year.
In the third quarter earnings report, the company revealed that it recorded a 79% increase in its quarterly profits to $4.7 billion.
Image Courtesy: Reuters, Telegraph