Facebook Estimates Around 10% of Accounts Are Fake

An anonymous reader writes "Last week, during its fourth-quarter earnings report, Facebook revealed it had 1.23 billion monthly active users, 757 million daily active users, 945 million monthly active mobile users, and 556 million daily active mobile users. In its 10-K filing published on the weekend, the company estimated that in 2013, between 5.5 percent and 11.2 percent of these users were fake." Another anonymous reader sent in a link to a recent interview where Mark Zuckerberg appears more pragmatic in his opinions about forcing real identities online: "Former Facebook employees say identity and anonymity have always been topics of heated debate in the company. Now Zuckerberg seems eager to relax his old orthodoxies. 'I don’t know if the balance has swung too far, but I definitely think we’re at the point where we don’t need to keep on only doing real identity things,' he says. 'If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.'"

Comments

They know your name anyway

[DMiax]

At this point, they will get to your name in any case. They have accumulated such a massive data base that they will identify you in a number of other ways. Your real name will eventually leak to them through your friends or because they match it with your name.surname@gmail.com address, or mining your company's staff page, or because you pay something with your credit card, etc... Plus a ton of other things.

Just because you don't have your real name there it does not mean they don't know who you are. It might help gainst other parties data mining/stalking you, though.

Re:They know your name anyway

[icebike]

At this point, they will get to your name in any case.

Exactly.

And worse, this is true even if you have NEVER signed up for facebook, because all of the idiots that use facebook for their address book, on their phone, so they even have your number, and names and numbers of everybody else in these fool's contact list and the ability to cross reference them all.

Re: They know your name anyway

[tlhIngan]

If they tightened up security better then many people wouldn't need a secondary "fake" account. This is after I pointed out a super easy trick to Facebook that will quickly give you the full friend list of a user, even if that person set visibility of his friend list to 'only me' and even if you're not friends with that person. (Not would they know that you acquired their friend list). Facebook claim that users shouldn't expect your friend list to be private, which makes it all the more misleading to offer restricted visibility of tour friends list. Broken / misleading security is a lot worse than no security, i.e. just telling people everyone can obtain their full friends list. This trick exists to this day, had not been addressed or even acknowledged as valid. So much for helping out Facebook through contacting them.

You're assuming the security is there for the users.

It's not. The whole notion of privacy on Facebook, or Google, or any other social networking site is purely for marketing purposes. Yes, marketing. The people who run these companies aren't stupid. They know that a number of people will refuse to put on personal information if they weren't in someway "protected" or can "control" it.

Of course, it's really like telling a secret - once you tell, it's not a secret anymore, and any promises made by the told party are mere words said to encourage the telling of secrets.

Facebook, Google, and others have the vast databases because they've hoodwinked everyone into believing they have control over the information. Just a few empty words to get people to open up.

The adage still holds true - don't put online what you don't want the whole world to know.

Re:For Testing

[Threni]

What's a fake account? I have a regular one, for everyone, then I have one for competitions and the like, where you have to `like` something to enter. Clearly I'm not going to do this on my normal account because it'll spam all my contacts and I'll look like a twat. What do they expect you to do? But it's not "fake" - it's got my name on it (sort of). I do the same for Twitter, but I don't recall having to pretend that my second (or my first, come to that) Twitter account was "mine".

Define "fake"

[Trogre]

If I put up a Facebook page for my cat, is that considered a fake account? No fake identities have been used, though perhaps the T&S require all users to be human.

What about people who have two FB profiles - eg one filled with gaming apps and all the crap that comes along with it, and the other for socialising?

Translating to real-life

[ctheme]

Does this mean that 10% of my friends aren't really my friends?

Fake is another word for Stop Being Pervy

[WillAffleckUW]

A lot of so-called "fake" accounts were created because FB is way too pervy, wanting to know enough information about you that they can sell it to content aggregators.

So one creates "fake" accounts with no real phone number attached and a generic image to stop FB from being too NSA.

Maybe they should back off. Everyone is leaving fast because their perv-quotient is way too high.

Ya think, Zuck?

[erp_consultant]

If Zuckerberg is publically acknowledging 10% then you can be sure it's a lot higher than that. I'd peg it at closer to 25%. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is that, due to FB's policies, legitimate users feel compelled to put in fake names, birthdates, locations, schools, employers, etc. Why? Because of FB's continued and well documented history of deceptive security practices. You cannot trust them and it's one of the main reasons I don't use facebook.

In short, the users don't want to give up their accounts entirely (although I'm sure many have) but remain there with a fake identity. So the question then becomes: for a company like FB where almost 100% of their revenue comes from advertising how effective is it when you are advertising to zombie accounts?

Re:For Testing

[icebike]

What's a fake account?

Given their terms of service your testing account is almost certainly fake. If you only look at it to "like" stuff that you don't even care enough about to do so publicly, its fake, (as is your "like").

I only know a few people with facebook accounts who don't have a second so-called "testing" account, plus a couple accounts they started and then abandoned.

So I'm thinking the 50% number is closer to the mark than the 10%

Not mine

[tylersoze]

I'm a 104 year old man born in Antarctica currently residing in the North Sentinel Islands. I graduated from Columbine High School at the age of 1 and went to Miskatonic University in Arkham Massachusetts.

The pressure of real identity

[TheloniousToady]

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

Exactly. That's why I post here so often as Anonymous Coward.

Identity?

[niw3]

My wife's account with her real name closed arbitrarily by facebook together with her somewhat popular pages and groups. Reason: fake account. She scanned and sent her id and everything. Only response from facebook says this decision is final and cannot be reversed. So I am saying, fuck your policies Mark.