9.6% of Facebook's Users 'May Be Fakes' (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the New York Times: Facebook estimates that about 200 million of its more than 2.07 billion users may be fakes... [Non-paywalled article here.] Colin Stretch, the general counsel of Facebook, told the Senate Intelligence Committee the company was doubling its review staff to 20,000 and using artificial intelligence to find more "bad actors"... Sean Edgett, Twitter's general counsel, testified before Congress that about 5 percent of its 330 million users are "false accounts or spam," which would add up to more than 16 million fakes.

Independent experts say the real numbers are far higher. On Twitter, little more than an email address is needed to start tweeting. Facebook's requirement that users be their authentic selves means the company asks for a smattering of information to sign up -- name, birthday, gender and email address. But few checks exist to verify if that information is true when a user signs up.

Comments

Way more than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Spammers, Trolls, People who make sock puppet accounts.... there's tons of semi-fake accounts out there. I'd bet on 50%.

Fakebook . . . ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Definitely "Fakebook" . . . yeah, Zuckerberg's Gestapo crew will now be after me, but, when push comes to shove . . . (Especially since he will probably be the President of the USA real soon),

"Fakebook" is an appropriate name for his business. Just ask Russia what the costs are.

Re:Fakebook . . . ?

[UnknownSoldier]

FecesBook - people posting their random crap that no one gives a shit about
FazeBook - yet-another-social-media-site
FarceBook - more bullshit news then real news
FailBook - more failed virtual relations then real ones
FuckBook - your privacy is fucked over for profit

Re:Fakebook . . . ?

[MangoCats]

I'm thinking they may have misplaced the decimal point... 2.07 Billion, really?

I could totally believe 83 million "real" Facebook users, people who live and breathe the app every day. 2+ Billion is counting people that haven't logged on in years, have no idea how to use "the Facebook" and otherwise holders of inactive accounts.

Just because there's a real person behind a zombie account doesn't mean that they'll be in any way influenced by advertising or other media pushed through Facebook.

Re: Fakebook . . . ?

[Thundercat007]

It's 2.07 because Facebook went on that campaign where they were creating profiles for "everyone" whether they were a user or not. So others could tag them (without their knowledge of course). Nobody really made a stink oddly enough (head scratch). Now active users vs fake users vs db created users would be an interesting ratio.

2.07 Billion?

[gtall]

There are roughly 7.6 billion people on the planet, and about 1/4 of them use facebook?

I'm guessing there are well north of 200 million fakes.

Re:2.07 Billion?

[vlad30]

I consider anyone that uses Facebook more than 15 minutes a day to be a fake, real friends communicate in person

Re:2.07 Billion?

[Kjella]

There are roughly 7.6 billion people on the planet, and about 1/4 of them use facebook? I'm guessing there are well north of 200 million fakes.

You don't understand the reach of Facebook. Here in Norway 80% of the population has used Facebook in the last three months and 65% use it daily. In the youth category (16-24) about 90% use it daily. Granted, we're only 5.2 million of the world population but "everyone" is on Facebook. These are quite reliable statistics not made by Facebook. Getting a Facebook account is the current decade's version of getting a GeoCities homepage, "everyone" has one. I'm quite willing to believe Facebook's numbers are accurate. I don't want the to be, but the facts quite clearly reject my wishes.

Re:2.07 Billion?

[rtb61]

So basically the majority of Norwegians fell into Facebooks digital trap. You know the purposefully engineering it to drive as much interaction as possible, to force you to continually interact with it, as if it were a personal relationship. The need to respond was very manipulatively engineered into it, which is why people use it compulsively right up until it becomes an intolerable demand and toss it entirely. Then much like a cult that you walk away from, you are now abandoned by it's remaining followers, as they are still tied to it communicatively and feel like you have abandoned them. All very psychologically dirty and quite damaging long term to social relationships. Digitally interactions do overload social interactions diminishing their worth, a means to an end (developing personal relationships) and not just a means for it's own worth (developing lots of meaningless digital relationships).

I'm fake multiple times

[Maxo-Texas]

And none of them have posted on facebook in over 5 years.
I have one account- created after where I saw facebook was headed that has no pictures and I only follow one subject. Yet- it's already suggested real life friends among the people who 'might' be my friends.

It's fucking creepy.

Re:I'm fake multiple times

[whoever57]

Yet- it's already suggested real life friends among the people who 'might' be my friends.

Probably, your friends installed a mobile app, which sucked up all the contacts in their device and then Facebook found your email address amongst those addresses.

Re:I'm fake multiple times

[xlsior]

Facebook typically lists *active* accounts in their stats, which are accounts that have logged in in the past 30 days or so.
They already discount your multiple accounts that never log in or post

The total number of accounts in their system is undoubtedly much higher.

Mine is

[HalAtWork]

I have a profile with my real name, but everything on there is false info, fake friends, fake pictures, fake likes, fake affiliations, fake posts. But it's all consistent. I just want to see what happens.

Number too low.

[Narcocide]

No way it's less than 20%. I suspect it's pushing 30% actually.

Fake account

[st0nes]

My dog has an account. Is this a real or fake account?