Facebook removed over 1.5 billion fake accounts in last six months

The Facebook CEO’s post is very interesting especially if one were to consider the removal of fake accounts. The number 1.5 billion in just two quarters is not a small by any stretch, especially when considering that Facebook has itself claimed that it has over 2.5 billion monthly active users on the social network.

In his Facebook post Zuckerberg wrote that the company has been “proactively identifying fake accounts, which are the source of much of the spam, misinformation, and coordinated information campaigns. This approach works across all our services, including encrypted services like WhatsApp, because it focuses on patterns of activity rather than the content itself.”

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“In the last two quarters, we have removed more than 1.5 billion fake accounts,” he wrote. So it looks like this fake account removal number refers to across Facebook products, which would include Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.

The Facebook CEO also wrote in his post that the company plans to reduce the reach of click-bait content, which tends to go viral on the network. “…the most effective way to stop the spread of misinformation is to remove the fake accounts that generate it. The next most effective strategy is reducing its distribution and virality.”

Facebook will also expand its content appeals system to let users appeal against a decision where a piece of content gets taken down. Zuckerberg said the idea is to “provide more transparency into how policies were either violated or not.”