The number of fake accounts on Facebook is roughly the size of Egypt’s population and larger than most of the world’s countries, the company disclosed this week.
In a 10-Q filing, Facebook acknowledged that a total of 8.7% or 83 million accounts on the network are bogus. Of that 8.7%, 4.8% are duplicate accounts, 2.4% are user-misclassified accounts and 1.5% are “undesirable” accounts, a.k.a. spam.
The figure is a bit higher than the company’s previous estimates. In a March filing, Facebook claimed about 5% to 6% of its accounts or 40.3 million to 50.7 million were fake. The company also says it bans at least 20,000 accounts daily and estimates about 600,000 accounts per day are compromised.
Taking the latest figures into account, Facebook’s latest claim of 955 million active users would be downgraded to 872 million.
