Why Duplicate and Fake Accounts Exist on FB? - Facebook Report

The approximate number of duplicate and fake accounts have been estimated to be 27.5 crores according to the Facebook annual report taken as per monthly active users until December 31, 2019. The Facebook report has been taken among the 250-crore users as per polimer report. Reportedly the social networking site has seen an 8% increase in users when compared to December 31, 2018.

The reports revealed that the majority of duplicate accounts exist in developing markets such as the Philippines and Vietnam. The major reasons for such accounts are people maintaining multiple accounts i.e. some people maintain an additional account apart from their original (primary) account for business purpose and pets. Reportedly these accounts violate Facebook terms of services/polices and are considered as spam.

The estimated duplicate and fake accounts were calculated based on an internal review of a limited sample of accounts after applying notable judgement over them. Since it is pretty hard to identify duplicate and fake accounts, the estimates may vary to an extent.

While 5% of accounts on Facebook are estimated to be fake, the daily active users on the Social Media platform have increased to 9% in December 2019 when compared to 2018 ( In 2018 it was 158 crores whereas in 2019 it rose to 166 crores). The key factors for this growth are the users from India, Indonesia and the Philippines according to the report.