According to Facebook, there are about 83 million accounts on their network that they believe to be fake.
Earlier this week, Facebook produced
documents in
front of the Securities and Exchange Commission that stated that out of
the social network's 955 million users 8.5% are thought to be bogus.
Out of these 8.5% accounts 4.8% belong to users who maintain duplicate
accounts.
Maintaining duplicate accounts does violate the terms
and conditions of Facebook but the largest proportion of fake accounts
is comprised of it. Users usually prefer two accounts in order to keep
their personal and social life separate. Totally understandable, right?
No one wants to mingle these two parallel universes to collide with each
other.
The second largest proportion of bogus accounts comprises of
'user-misclassified' accounts. These accounts have been created by
people in honour of their cat, dog, business, favourite soccer team and
what not. Basically, some 2.4% of 8.5% accounts are 'user-misclassified'
and created in adoration of a 'non-human entity'. We wonder if making a
Facebook page is too complicated a process for the 2.4%.
The third and final award goes to a group of people that we admire the
most because Rafay's Geniuses are paid to write about these mean, green,
viral machines! 1.5% or 14 million of 83 million fake accounts are
categorised as 'undesirable' by Facebook. These accounts are created for
the purpose of sending out spam or malicious content and links to other
Facebook users.
872 million users on Facebook are genuine and legit. These users need to
be able to breathe freely on Facebook without the fear of getting
attacked by viruses. I mean, c'mon! We choose to socialize on our
laptops rather than face to face so that we wouldn't have to bear the
extra baggage that comes along with it. We deserve to feel safe, as safe
as heaven, on a site where we spend hours and share our life's
''status'' on! It only makes sense that companies running businesses and
advertising on Facebook through pages would want genuine 'likes' from
genuine profiles too. Hence, telling us why these accounts are known as
'undesirable'.
Facebook also states that these fake accounts are 'customary' in
countries where Facebook isn't as established, for example, Turkey and
Indonesia. But the real question is, is Facebook going to 'face' an
issue regarding these bogus accounts (pun intended).
Bogus or not, its going to be very difficult for Facebook to separate
the fake from the real as very few credentials are needed to create
Facebook accounts. Whatever the case maybe, enjoy while you still can
dear Fakers!
