Facebook recently reported its third-quarter earnings and they exceeded market expectations. The company also quietly published two important figures that show that the fake or duplicate account problem on the world’s largest social network continues to grow. There are over 270 million fake and duplicate accounts on Facebook, that’s almost one for every person in the United States.
Facebook revealed in this third-quarter earnings that the percentage of fake accounts on its network is up from 1 percent to 2-3 percent. It also revealed that 10 percent of its 2.07 billion monthly users are now accounted for by duplicate accounts, a significant increase from the previous estimate of 6 percent.
The company does point out that there hasn’t been a sudden surge in fake or duplicate accounts during the third quarter. It explains that the estimates have been revised because of “a new methodology for duplicate accounts that included improvements to the data signals we rely on.”
Facebook is reportedly going to use the same methodology updates to improve the accuracy of its tools for advertisers. The improved accuracy is going to affect Facebook’s estimates for the number of real people a paid advertisement can reach on the world’s largest social network.
Fake accounts are still a common sight on Facebook even though the social network is strict about verifying the identity of its users. Duplicate accounts aren’t necessarily made by bad actors, some people just like having multiple profiles.
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