It’s that time of year once again where Facebook is brought before the US Securities and Exchange Commission for its quarterly report. The findings for the past 12 months of the company have shown that around 6.4% of all accounts are fake, misleading, and in some instances, dangerous.
Sure, that means that 93.6% of accounts are legit, but that seemingly insignificant 6.4% is becoming a huge thorn in the side of the social network. According to The Australian, a spokesperson from Facebook commented on the findings, agreeing that there are “inherent challenges” involved in policing the issues “despite our efforts to detect and suppress such behaviour”.
Duplicate accounts are said to total 4.8% of active users, and around 2.4% are said to be pets or businesses, but a sneaky little 1.5% is said to be malicious. It’s these guys that send you messages asking if that’s you in a picture, or wanting photos of your feet (has that happened to anyone else?).
“We believe 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,” Facebook said in its quarterly filing.
This is causing two massive real-time problems for The Book. One being that businesses that invest solid money into advertising want to be sure that it’s all going to a real-life market, not spambots, and the other that the ‘likes’ they receive are from actual consumers. There is also the opposite side of that coin, with many businesses, often bands, paying for bogus likes just to boost their stats. For shame.
It’s this news that Facebook is desperately trying to avoid, given the recent bombing of their company once publicly listed. If the share price were to drop another 5 cents, it would be half of what it originally floated for, around US$19. It’s factors such as fake accounts, and the ever-growing mobile platform for the social network that remains ad free that serve to hinder the growth of the company, which many analysts believe is now a pipe-dream for old mate Zucka.
