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Facebook Deleted 583 Million Fake Accounts in the First Three Months of 2018 (cnet.com)

Facebook said Tuesday that it had removed more than half a billion fake accounts and millions of pieces of other violent, hateful or obscene content over the first three months of 2018. From a report: In a blog post on Facebook, Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of product management, said the social network disabled about 583 million fake accounts during the first three months of this year -- the majority of which, it said, were blocked within minutes of registration. That's an average of over 6.5 million attempts to create a fake account every day from Jan. 1 to March 31. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion monthly active users, and if Facebook's AI tools didn't catch these fake accounts flooding the social network, its population would have swelled immensely in just 89 days.

37 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Delete all the real accounts too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    that would be a good start

    1. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by Locke2005 · · Score: 5, Funny

      What do you call 583 million deleted Facebook accounts? A good start!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by slickwillie · · Score: 1

      I swelled immensely just thinking about it.

    3. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      Yeah, my first thought reading this headline was that "Hey, I'll be a nice guy and help them out....I still will NOT ever create an account on there and increase their membership management load."

      I'm happy to help do my part!!

      ;)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    4. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by HarrySquatter · · Score: 1

      Not that they care. They have a shadow profile on you already.

    5. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Don't worry. Someone already created an account in your name. You can guarantee it wasn't one of the 583 million that were just deleted. It will safely continue spearphishing all your family, friends, former schoolmates and colleagues for years. Great job proving that inaction can be worse than malicious action.

    6. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by olsmeister · · Score: 1

      They don't have a profile on me. I am connected to the internet through multiple VPNs, an onion router, I ... huh, I just got an e-mail for a great deal on a VPN provider, cool beans!

    7. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Then how do you recognize them from the other Facebook users?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by Quantum+gravity · · Score: 1

      They have a shadow profile of you, if you have a friend with a Facebook account, who allows the "find friends" feature of the Facebook app to download contact information that includes you. It will be interesting to see how this plays out after May 25, when the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) comes into effect and becomes enforceable.

    9. Re:Delete all the real accounts too by geoskd · · Score: 2

      Not that they care. They have a shadow profile on you already.

      I have at least 4 fake Facebook profiles. Every time I need to log in to one of those idiotic sites that uses facebook to authenticate, I create another fake facebook account and use it to sign up. (It helps that I have a domain that I can send any email I want to). I just intercept the first email to verify the account and then blackhole the address. I do not have a "real" facebook account, as I dont use the service, but i would be willing to bet that facebook considers each and every one of my accounts to be "active" since they are all used to regularly authenticate various things.

      My wife has at least two accounts that I know of, and probably at least one more that I don't

      Given all of that, and the fact that facebook is wiping out 100 million fake accounts a month and has never wiped any of mine, I have to wonder how many real accounts they actually have? 1 Billion, 500 miillion, 100 million? I would be willing to bet that they even know how many real accounts there are, but go to great lengths to hide the reality from their advertisers as this would collapse their revenue pretty quick. Even having to admit that they only had 500 million real users instead of 2 billion would take a very large chunk off their advertising revenue and put their stock into free fall.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
  2. They're getting there! by Notabadguy · · Score: 2

    Now if Facebook would just disable the other 2.2 billion accounts, we'd be getting somewhere.

    1. Re: They're getting there! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I have no mod point ever, will someone mod this guy -1, idiot

  3. God I hate CNET by FrankOVD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thanks for the news, but I gotta say I hate CNet's habit of throwing you an auto play video every time you click on a link. I'm on a slow wi-fi network and just closing the floating window doesn't stop the audio, which you can't pause until the embedded video is loaded and you find it. I wonder why they keep being this annoying. I was a fan of their website before that but then I turned my back to them because I felt like they didn't care about User Experience at all. Feels good speaking about it.

    1. Re:God I hate CNET by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      I used to love CNET back in 1996 to 1998. Today, it's just another shitting website. Just when you think the layout couldn't be worse...

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  4. "I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by shanen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I also considered "NOT a real penalty" as the Subject.

    So let's start with the question of "Why?"

    Because a fresh fake identity is extremely valuable. It starts out with the polite respect most of us accord to any stranger. The sock puppet loses nothing by getting nuked, but polite and civil discourse was destroyed first.

    Solution approach: Use EPR (Earned Public Reputation) to make fake identities less valuable. Actually, the default visibility setting can be calibrated against the number of fake identities that are being created (among other factors). If visibility has to be earned by sustained niceness and if bad behaviors are remembered and suitably penalized (with reduced visibility), then the social environment would be greatly improved.

    Yes, even on Slashdot. One way to think of EPR is as enhanced karma with teeth attached.

    ADSAuPR, atAJG, but even better if you have a better solution or solution approach to discuss. The typical responses on Slashdot these years are just bits of shallow snark, sometimes followed by a trickle of ideas worth thinking about...

    (I increasingly feel that's yet another time-related problem, mostly caused by the uniform cycle time of the top page. One solution there would be variable descent speeds, with more significant stories falling more slowly--but that presumes Slashdot had an economic model that actually supported sustained improvement. ( in Japanese.))

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    1. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you've put some thought into this. I often think how public forums could be improved as a good one can offer so much value. I find it odd that this problem still hasn't been solved yet. Slashdot makes a reasonable attempt, but there's still plenty of room for improvement.

    2. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by ToTheStars · · Score: 1

      ADSAuPR, atAJG

      Could you write this out in full, please?

    3. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by shanen · · Score: 1

      Thanks for asking. ADSAuPR, atAJG stands for Additional Detailed Suggestions Available upon Polite Request, as the Ancient Joke Goes.

      Want to ask? I'm still suffering from delusions of grand solutions.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    4. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by shanen · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it would be easy. I think it has to be a multidimensional thing with orthogonal dimensions that also evolve over time. I also think the dimensions should be tilted towards niceness, in that it should be easier to say encouraging words while discouraging words should call for evidence or justification... And yet I cling to hope of a better world (soon enough for me to benefit).

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    5. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 1

      The hard part is scale. Smaller forums tend to self manage as most people behave in small groups. As soon as you get big, the monkeysphere limits kicks in the manners go out the window. The challenge is effective and consistent moderation in large groups, maybe AI will solve this soon?

    6. Re:"I'll be back" said the sock puppet! by shanen · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that this is one way to conceive of the problem. From the perspective you have chosen, EPR will allow you to control the scale by giving priority to the nicer people. Among all of the strangers you meet you could focus on the ones most deserving of your time and attention. Actually, that could be an interesting way to handle the visibility threshold: Set my current visibility so that I only see 100 people in each venue. (Staying below Dunbar's Number?) Long ago I actually formulated that aspect in terms of the scale of competition distorting our perceptions of good and bad. It was relatively easy to be the fastest runner in your village, or to excel in some way that your friend knew and appreciated, but now both of us know about Usain Bolt... (Or can look him up on the Web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)

      However I probably wouldn't use EPR that way, since I'm not such a social person. I would probably just set it about twice as high as the default level to screen out more of the time-wasters. Then again, it would be tempting to ask for emphasis on the top 10% in certain dimensions... For example, perhaps the funniest people should attract more of my attention?

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  5. double facepalm by epine · · Score: 2

    Facebook boasts 2.2 billion monthly active users, and if Facebook's AI tools didn't catch these fake accounts flooding the social network, its population would have swelled immensely in just 89 days.

    This assumes that account creation rate is independent of the account deletion rate, with no justification and for no particular reason, other than to cap the submission summary text with a de rigueur derf derf.

  6. Joke on them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When they asked me to provide an ID with my fake name(nickname), I made a fake ID in photoshop, took a picture of it and sent it, now my fake name account is verified as legit.

    1. Re:Joke on them by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, now you violated Federal Law as well as the Facebook TOS!

    2. Re:Joke on them by jetkust · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, now you violated Federal Law as well as the Facebook TOS!

      Looks like he'll have to permanently change his name to "nickname".

    3. Re:Joke on them by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, now you violated Federal Law as well as the Facebook TOS!

      Your assuming the GP is in the same legal jurisdiction as you, which is quite strange given that this an international forum.

    4. Re:Joke on them by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Two wrongs don't make a right. And before you ask, no, neither do 584 million.

  7. 4chan will be suicidal over this by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    All their trolling and stalking accounts have been deleted, oh noes! xD xD xD

    1. Re:4chan will be suicidal over this by Z80a · · Score: 1

      They will just create more, but being a bit smarter, there's nothing to lose when you get a fake account deleted.

    2. Re:4chan will be suicidal over this by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Nah, he hasn't, he's still on dialup BBS's (Z80a=4MHz 8-bit)

  8. Good thing I created my fake account years ago by oh-dark-thirty · · Score: 1

    You know, before they got strict.

    I never use it, but it makes me happy to know I got one over on them.

  9. simplified Turing test... by stilrz · · Score: 2

    So If I should direct my AI chat bot at Faceplant and they don't delete the account does it pass the Turing test?

    Once account is created I could then start feeding it fake information on location, web browsing, nose picking, slashdot posts, personal interactions, take out orders, credit reports and a plethora of other useless information to maintain my bots humanist endeavor.

    Or is this the bot?

    Muhahahahaha

  10. Suspiciously like supression of speech by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If visibility has to be earned by sustained niceness and if bad behaviors are remembered and suitably penalized (with reduced visibility), then the social environment would be greatly improved.

    That sounds suspiciously like the suppression of free speech.

    Instead of enforcing some nebulous universal value-of-people, why not let individuals choose what they would like to see and hear?

    That way I can listen to whoever I want, and you don't have to concern yourself with whether the person I'm listening to has good social standing or not.

    1. Re:Suspiciously like supression of speech by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The real problem is that the tools provided to decide who you listen to are inadequate and very difficult to build.

      The average person probably doesn't want to listen to Russian propaganda on Facebook. What tools are there to help them do that? How much effort and technical ability do they require?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. Re:shadow profiles by jetkust · · Score: 1

    Shadow profiles are used to prevent data scraping. Didn't you know? To prevent scraping data from an account that never existed they create a new account FOR YOU! You don't even have to do anything. Isn't that brilliant? It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

  12. Re:One question ... by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    1) The information is that interesting if you're doing A.I. research or market research for advertising, or A.I. research for market research for advertising.

    2) Direct access to a communications channel with millions/billions of verified real humans constitutes indirect access to a vastly more interesting bottomless trove of data for anyone doing the types of things mentioned above in point #1.

  13. Bit of a fake news story from /. by aliquis · · Score: 1

    "Facebook boasts 2.2 billion monthly active users, and if Facebook's AI tools didn't catch these fake accounts flooding the social network, its population would have swelled immensely in just 89 days."

    I have ~four Facebook accounts but only three I keep track of but I use them over each others as I get banned and Facebook definitely haven't removed any of them meaning they let me have at-least three accounts.

    From the part about one could kinda see some speculation about how 600 million more accounts on top of 2.2 billion would be a large increase but either Facebook see my three(+) accounts as unique active accounts and if so 2.2 billion become off from the real user-base with people like me (we may not be all that many, but yeah, as far as numbers goes there's plenty of "fake" already) or they have figured out I'm one and the same person but let me be and if so they aren't counting all the accounts.

    I guess maybe they do count all my accounts but if so that just mean Facebook have a smaller user base than what they say.