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Facebook has more than 83 million 'fake' users

N

NewAnger

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 24, 2012
904
3
Denver Colorado
I've made my share of fake accounts, mostly to play games on because I wanted to be able to have several versions going playing the same game.I've also created 3-4 real accounts over the years with different friends. One I still login to occasionally to spy on my friends there and then close the account and then repeat every few weeks or so. FB was criticized for allowing users to do this several months ago but hasn't done anything about it.

One company accuses FB of manufacturing bots to click on ads to increase revenue.
Facebook has revealed that it believes there are now more than 83 million "fake" users on the social network.

In company filings published this week, it said 8.7% of its 955 million active users might not be real.

Duplicate profiles made up 4.8% of the users, user-misclassified accounts amounted to 2.4%, and 1.5% of users were described as "undesirable".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19093078
 
I rarely have time to check my FB account to catch up with my friends and kids
I certainly have no time to create multiple accounts for games or spying (why?)

FB will prolly eventually implode due the sheer weight of nonsense on it
 
I wonder what falls into the definition of "fake" (unable to read link at the moment so if it says there, whoops).

I bet there's plenty of fake (at least in my book) profiles due to many sites moving to FB commenting as well. No more anon trolling on newspaper stories or random sites, so make a fake FB profile to keep up the trash.
 
Two of my FB friends have created accounts for their pets. And one for his 'wife' Audrey Hepburn. It doesn't surprise me that there are fake accounts, but to say nearly 1 in 9 is fake is unbelievable! I hardly use FB anymore though.
 
malman89 said:
I wonder what falls into the definition of "fake" (unable to read link at the moment so if it says there, whoops).
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Defined as accounts that "broke its rules". That would probably make mine "fake" since it's not under my legal name (but rather under my "online name" so that my friends can actually find me - it's not Nermal either) :p
 
I have an FB account... I have a few 'friends' but the majority of them I have hidden so I don't have to read their posts.

SkyBell said:
What's the appeal in creating fake accounts? :confused:
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What's the appeal of opening up your personal life for corporate sneaks to track? :p
 
Melrose said:
What's the appeal of opening up your personal life for corporate sneaks to track? :p
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So they can always find me when they have a good deal? :rolleyes:

Not defending Facebook, but the sites that don't in some way do the same are few and far between.
 
malman89 said:
So they can always find me when they have a good deal? :rolleyes:

Not defending Facebook, but the sites that don't in some way do the same are few and far between.
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A wise man (Sir John A. - iirc) once said.... "If you are not paying for a service, then you are not the customer. You - sir - are the product."

I have a FB account, which I use to read what my friends are up to. I never ever ever sign up for those invitations my friends send, or to use my FB to read the Guardian.

Our late cat had her own FB page for a bit... it was pretty boring since all she ever seemed to do was nap.
 
snberk103 said:
A wise man (Sir John A. - iirc) once said.... "If you are not paying for a service, then you are not the customer. You - sir - are the product."

I have a FB account, which I use to read what my friends are up to. I never ever ever sign up for those invitations my friends send, or to use my FB to read the Guardian.

Our late cat had her own FB page for a bit... it was pretty boring since all she ever seemed to do was nap.
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I was going to get rid of my Voice account, but then realized - Google's message transcription is so bad it does their marketing team more harm than good. :p

malman89 said:
So they can always find me when they have a good deal? :rolleyes:

Not defending Facebook, but the sites that don't in some way do the same are few and far between.
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Facebook doesn't have good deals - they simply market the space for better advertising. :) Like I said, I have a FB account, so I'm hardly in the clear here.
 
Two college buddies of mine made Facebook accounts for all of the characters in the Harry Potter series. They even make status updates and more for them.
 
MacNut said:
I thought it is against the rules to make fake accounts?
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It is but how does FB know that in one family, each member may very well have their own account? I made several when I uses to play one Zynga game. I made them so I could help my self in the game get things done. For all they knew. these were made by members of my family.

They are considering fake accounts also as more than one created by the same person.
 
I made a fake account back before they had the "view my profile as..." function, so I could test my privacy settings. Haven't used it in years, but I imagine it's still there.

Also, at one point somebody made an account with my name and profile picture, added a bunch of my actual friends as friends and started spamming them. Took me a while to figure out why all my friends were telling me they were getting spam from me...
 
Every online service will have duplicate, fake accounts etc

It's impressive to see Facebook attempting to put a solid number on how many there are on its service.
 
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