Facebook: 1.5 percent of user accounts 'undesirable'

About 1.5 percent of Facebook's 955 million users — or about 14.325 million — may be using the social network for "undesirable" activities like spamming.

 

The estimate came from Facebook itself, in its first quarterly earnings report submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission as a public company.

 

"We estimate (that as of June 30 this year), user-misclassified accounts may have represented approximately 2.4 percent of our worldwide monthly active users (MAUs) and undesirable accounts may have represented approximately 1.5 percent of our worldwide MAUs," it said.

 

It grouped the undesirable accounts with "user-misclassified" account - where users created personal profiles for a business, organization, or non-human entity such as a pet - under the "false" accounts category.

 

On the other hand, Facebook also estimates 4.8 percent of its monthly active users may be duplicate accounts, or those maintained by users other than their principal accounts.

 

Facebook said it believes the percentage of accounts that are duplicate or false is "meaningfully lower" in developed markets such as the United States or Australia and higher in developing markets such as Indonesia and Turkey.

 

However, it said these estimates are based on an internal review of a limited sample of accounts.

 

A separate article on CNET said also Facebook revealed it had 955 million monthly active users and 543 million monthly active mobile users.

 

Of the active mobile users, 102 million accessed it in June solely from their mobile devices.

 

'Huge jump'

 

CNET said the number of "fake" accounts - about 8.7 percent, or 83.09 million accounts - is a "huge jump" both in raw numbers and as a percentage.

 

It said Facebook's last estimate showed 5 to 6 percent of accounts are false or duplicate. At the time, this meant between 42.25 million and 50.70 million users. — RSJ, GMA News