Facebook: The Billion Dollar Bot Problem

By:  The Financial Times

March 23, 2021

 

Facebook or Fakebook? In the last quarter of 2020 the US social media giant disabled 1.3bn fake accounts — a tally equal to almost half its real monthly active users. User accounts are the basis for advertising sales that make up almost all of Facebook’s revenues. If a percentage of accounts are fake, advertisers should be demanding a discount.

 

For the past two years, Facebook has been removing at least 1bn fake accounts each quarter, most as soon as they are created, it claims. Despite increasing its headcount by 30 per cent last year, and claiming “the most advanced systems in the world” to address fake accounts that spread misinformation, the problem has lingered.

 

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