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Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled
- tyingq 7y ago"Facebook removed more than three billion fake accounts - more than ever before." Oy. How do you justify letting this issue fester that long / to that degree? How is that not an unprecedented mea culpa? Edit: I'll risk the HN "downvoting not discussed mantra" for this. BILLIONS of active fake accounts is a core competency failure, full stop. World population is single digit billions...give me a break.
- mc32 7y agoWhat’s the difference between a dual account and a fake account? Is it activism? Is it when the accounts are bought and sold, is it politics?
- lightedman 7y agoA dual account (eg a business/personal) on Facebook gives you a store to work with while maintaining both business and personal identity separation (to some degree.)
- Shish2k 7y agoFacebook could be ~100% accurate at separating real and fake accounts if they exchanged data with the government to make sure that every user had a passport / social security number / other equivalent associated with their account. Is that the world we want to live in?
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoSome countries already do that - China, obviously. UK wants you to upload your ID when visiting a porn site (think of the children!). Japan has ID requirements for certain types of websites. And of course, both Google / Youtube and Facebook have had a real name policy in place for a long time, to much objections. I've gotten a popup from Facebook asking me if the name of a friend who intentionally uses a fake name on Facebook to try and avoid her stalker is correct.
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y agoThat's not the point and it's not even related to the discussion. I'm not sure why you are trying to bring in Big Brother nonsense. The fact of the matter is that there are only 7 billion people on earth, and Facebook had a whopping 3 billion fake accounts. So how did they let it hit 0.5, 1,2 and 3 billion fakes before doing something? Surely with all their algorithms and AI/ML/Data Scientists they could have intervened sooner, but they didn't.
- bryan_w 7y agoThis is only for the last six months. They aren't letting the issue fester, but rather there are enough bad actors out there to try 3 billion times to create fake accounts. They are probably deleting 1000s of accounts per day that they detect to be fake
- tyingq 7y ago3 billion in 6 months isn't "1000s...per day". It's ~17 million per day, all caught only after the fact. I stand by my characterization of "festered".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- onion2k 7y agoThat would only be 100% accurate if the government approved ID was perfectly secure, and no one ever leaked databases of those personal details. Tens of millions of passport and social security numbers are already out in the wild.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y agoHow to make it secure? Estonian and Scandinavian countries have chip on them that a computer can read, but it's for doing gov and banking stuff. You can always fake a photo, they don't have much to compare it against to. At some point FB started to verify profiles actively, I didn't use my own name or took part of any political/marketing mumbo jumbo, but I quickly photoshopped an id with the fake name using a sample ID as a blueprint and the human moderator left me alone.
- nradov 7y agoThere is no "the government". Many countries don't have a central population registry, or at least not an accurate one. And refugees often have no valid identifying documents.
- onion2k 7y agoHow do you justify letting this issue fester that long / to that degree? The article reports that Facebook said they "... spotted and deleted a majority of them within minutes, before they had any opportunity to "cause harm"." That would imply they're not letting the fake accounts fester but the scale of the problem is just absolutely huge.
- pesenti 7y agoThe actual report: https://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforcement#fake-accounts https://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforc... Fake accounts are estimated to represent 5% of all monthly active users.
- killjoywashere 7y agoSo ... most of those 3B were throw-aways?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Tempest1981 7y agoAnother important excerpt: "The majority of these accounts were caught within minutes of registration, before they became a part of our monthly active user (MAU) population." For MUA, recent news said "Facebook now serves 2.37 billion monthly active users". And 5% of that is "only" 120 million.
- threeseed 7y agoDuring the recent Australian election there were a number of Facebook advertisements by political figures which were completely false e.g. Labor party imposing a death tax. And given that the election result was pretty close it could've easily have made a difference. So I couldn't care less whether Facebook culled 3 billion profiles or not. What I need is for Facebook to make the hard choice and stop allowing political advertising on their platform. It's almost single handedly undermining democracy around the world.
- fredley 7y agoEven if it is banned, how on earth are you going to enforce it in any meaningful way? Truth, lies, boots, World...
- pluma 7y agoSame way you enforce any other rule. Same way they already enforce the rules they have? I hope you weren't hoping for an argument about slippery slopes. And yes, of course that means they may have to hire more moderators and of course that means more expenses. Who ever said Facebook should get away with no moderation just because they're successful?
- fredley 7y agoI mean what's to prevent me putting up ads that I say aren't political, but are? By the time they've been reported and taken down it's already too late?
- threeseed 7y agoIn your case just use the same approach as spam. Ask all users to report political advertising. If it reaches a certain threshold take down the ad. Manually review it. If it is political then ban the user, payment method and IP address.
- 7y ago
- b_tterc_p 7y ago0.02% of content viewed is terrorist propaganda or child sexual abuse. Multiply that by 100 pieces of content per day, and 365 days per year and you get 7 pieces of terrorist propaganda and child sex abuse per year. I wonder how focused it is on specific individuals or if it’s broadly random. I also wonder if rates of terrorist propaganda are much higher among individuals the propaganda is trying to target. Edit: that is, the base rate of 2 / 10000 pieces of content being terrorist propaganda is perhaps 0 / 10000 for 99% of users and 200 / 10000 for 1% of users.
- angel_j 7y agoThis is a joke. The punchline is everybody's fake on social media.
- baq 7y agotrue, doesn't make it any better though.
- nxpnsv 7y agoI wonder how I make my inactive account look fake so they will cull it properly...
- hombre_fatal 7y agoMaybe start posting affiliate links to mackeeper.com or adultfriendfinder.com in random groups.
- wincy 7y agoI’m sure if you posted porn you’d get banned pretty fast.
- whenchamenia 7y agoYour public profile would, but not the data collection and utilisation attached to it. Shadow profiles are often more detailed than 'real' ones.
- amelius 7y agoStart a campaign to quit Facebook collectively, and they'll ban you. A first step could be to change your profile picture into a "quit facebook" icon.
- whenchamenia 7y agoAny proof this works?
- wlll 7y agoDoes asking Facebook to delete your account only work in Europe? Perhaps use a VPN if not?
- zer0faith 7y agoFacebook is toxic.
- notacoward 7y agoBased on the number of comments already which don't even address the OP and add absolutely nothing to the discussion (including yours) so is Hacker News. Maybe the solution is for people to be less toxic, instead of blaming platforms.
- KirinDave 7y ago"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
- notacoward 7y agoPhysician, heal thyself. You're contributing to (what you see as) flamebait just as much as I was. At least I made a relevant suggestion (people vs. platforms). Also, IIRC the mods take a dim view of people presuming to do their jobs, especially when they do so selectively and aggressively. It's a form of stalking.
- MeltySmelty 7y agoshuttup fagboi
- skinnymuch 7y agoHow are you doing anything but what you quoted?
- 34679 7y ago#Fakebook
- klim_bim 7y agoFacebook = AOL + geocities. Long live Search.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago> "During that six-month period, Facebook removed more than three billion fake accounts - more than ever before. More than seven million "hate speech" posts were removed, also a record high." Any sense of context here? For example, seven million might be a raw record high, but of how many total posts would be far more telling. Same for fake accounts. Is that rate up? Down? Was there a time when FB wasn't as vigilant (perhaps to inflate its user base figures)? Is there a smoking gun for the SEC here?
- bArray 7y agoI suspect a significant number of posts removed for "hate speech" could have been people sharing videos/documents related to the Christchurch terrorist attack. It depends on the definition of a post and whether the BBC interpretted Facebook's message correctly. The number 1.5 million gets thrown around a lot [1]. I also heard the value 4 million, but cannot find the source. If that's true, then I imagine the details of other such attacks were also suppressed. [1] https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/24/facebook-christchurch-videos-ai/ https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/24/facebook-christchurch-vi...
- wolco 7y agoI know family members who will report posts between each other as hate speech when they are fighting and calling each other names.
- bArray 7y agoI wondered about cases like this. I don't think Facebook is well suited to dealing with the social nuances of real-life humans - context matters. Mass false flagging must be an equally difficult problem to deal with. Not that I make a habit of it, but sometimes something really annoys me on Facebook, but there's rarely an option that explains the actual problem. For example the other day I got a friend request from some young woman which I didn't accept (but left the request there encase it turned out to somebody who didn't look like their profile). A few days later the request turns into a young Indian looking man. I think most people can agree that bate and switch is bad behaviour for a social media network, but I couldn't find an option to report it using their limited interface.
- rwmj 7y agoThey didn't catch the 3 fake profiles I set up on Facebook. I've not used them for five or more years, but I checked recently and they are still there and still let me log in without so much as a "where you been". They all have obviously fake names and were used only for testing advertising at various times in the past.
- oh_sigh 7y agoI have hundreds of fake facebook profiles, because back in ~2005 or so when my university got facebook, I realized that our email accounts received all mail going to not only myaccount@myschool.edu but also myaccount@*.myschool.edu. Facebook, on the other hand, only confirmed if you were allowed to register based on suffix matching(it was limited to certain schools at that time), but otherwise treated your full email address as your ID. If bug bounties existed back then I would have certainly turned it in, but instead I just used it as a tool to entertain friends by posting comments as other people. Most of those accounts are based on memes from back then, or minor celebrity musicians myself and my friends were in to, but to this day, every account I try still works.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI’ve heard there’s some extra value for EBay accounts before a certain year. Probably because they just didn’t collect/verify enough data back then to be confident enough to make a decision.
- forgotmypw 7y agoThey did, however, "catch" my Instagram account, which was only used by a human (me). Since posting is not possible without installing the app, I never posted anything, but I did have a profile picture, followed accounts, and commented on posts. Then, one day, I tried to log in, and it was gone. Email address not recognized in password reset. No trace of any kind. So long, Instagram.
- antpls 7y agoSame for me recently. Now that Instagram IS Facebook, maybe Facebook doesn't make a difference between fake Instagram accounts and fake Facebook accounts in the report ? I have both fake Facebook accounts and Instagram accounts (like 3 or 5), and Instagram deactivated a recent account I created for "suspicious activities". I only liked one picture of an actual person and sent one private message with that account... Meanwhile, my other 4 Instagram accounts and Facebook accounts are fine, even if I sent and liked total garbage
- dawhizkid 7y agoThe CNN interview that aired today with some FB exec on this issue was such a cringe-worthy disaster. Could not answer why they made the decision to delete these profiles but would not delete a fake video of Pelosi slowed down meant to make her look drunk or stupid. It was wild.
- anonymous5133 7y agoI never knew how many fake profiles exist on facebook until I tried to buy a $10 amazon gift card with paypal in one of the groups I was joined. I missed all the red flags. First, the profile was an attractive female with little account activity. Second, when I tried to send the paypal payment it defaulted to PHP currency (Philippines money) even though the seller said they lived in the United States. Third, the account was non-us unverified. Then when the person actually did scam me, they immediately deleted the profile. Needless to say, that was the last time I trusted random people on facebook.
- thatoneuser 7y agoWhat was this scam?
- yyy888sss 7y agoThere are groups (on Discord, Facebook) where people sell Amazon gift card codes for less than the value of the gift card. Sometimes they are real codes that have been bought with accounts that have been hacked through email phishing, and sometimes they are completely fake.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- whenchamenia 7y agoYup, buddy had his amazon account banned for using such cards. His gf, who orders 10 things a day from there, and shared the account, was not impressed.
- wolco 7y agoJust curious have you tried this before with success or heard about a friend trying this? Was the deal extremely good 90% off or more reasonable 20/30%?
- mettamage 7y agoWell fortunately they didn't catch my account. And I'm happy they didn't. My fake account allows me to: 1. Login to websites that I don't want to share my actual contacts to but just my real name (my fake account has my real name and my real account a fake-ish name so that I can't be Googled too easily). 2. Disable that annoying wall by not having a lot of friends. 3. Be part of meaningful groups (only 1 so far), because my friends know that I have this fake account with a real name. 4. Amazing account for demo purposes when I was working at a coding school. 5. My fake account is setup on auto login on my primary browser, so if I type "fa" and press enter, I feel bored by the empty wall and very tiny friends list, instead of engaged. My main account is auto-logged in to messenger, so that's where I go now.
- Doubl 7y agoI'd be betting that they are going after huge blocks of fake accounts that they can link together somehow. Someone like you with a single fake account, they'll live with. They probably know that's so and so's other account. He likes to use that one on his PC. ;-)
- slim 7y agoI bet Facebook links your fake account to your real account internally and you count as 1 MAU in their stats.
- Doubl 7y agoI haven't got a Facebook account. If I did set one up it would probably be with a fake identity. I've sometimes been tempted because it would help with signing up in lots of other places. But Facebook (or Gavin as the Swype on my phone keeps calling it!) would probably figure out who I was anyway. And the thought of that creeps me out.
- jug 7y agoHoly moly! I thought FB only had that many users to begin with. When FB announces user counts I assume they include bots to bolster the numbers and only a few years back the number was ~1 billion??
- darkwizard42 7y agoYou might be confusing their reported numbers with total inactive accounts. They regularly report their Monthly Active Users which have been >1B recently.
- jobigoud 7y agoI was confused in the same way and thought the 2B+ accounts figure usually reported was total accounts. So how many accounts, active or inactive, bots or humans, are there in total?
- darkwizard42 7y agoDon’t think they publicly reveal this as I’m not sure it’s relevant or important to investors/advertisers.
- whenchamenia 7y agoIt is very relevant. It just looks very bad when you see the actual numbers.
- panarky 7y agoMAUs were 2.38 billion as of March 31, 2019, an increase of 8% year-over-year. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2019/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2019-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
- dredmorbius 7y agoIn the months prior to the Google+ shutdown, I took several pulls of the full listing of Communities on the site via sitemaps files. Though not the same level of detail as profiles, this produced interesting results. The total net number of communities was increasing by about 1 percent per month (80,000 communites added). At the same time, about four thousand communities per day were being removed (unavailable when queried in the 24 hours following the sitemaps pull), or 120,000/mo. Total (gross, not net) new community creation rate was quite high: 200,000/mo. This continued until new community creation was disabled in February 2019, in advance of the site shutdown. Total communities numbered over 8.1 million at final count. https://joindiaspora.com/posts/13767351 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/13767351 A pretty considerable level of churn.
- alexpetralia 7y agoTo what degree are advertisers aware that the profiles which see their ads may not be genuine users? I suspect they either don't know, or have no alternatives.
- chrisseaton 7y agoDo fake profiles 'see' ads? They don't artificially browse around the site, to create impressions, or do they?
- _red 7y agoBut doesn't FB use the existence of said profiles as a lure for advertisers? (eg. Your ad could reach any of our 1B members...) Seems like a class-action lawsuit in the making.
- dahfizz 7y agoIt's no secret that Facebook is battling bots. Do you have anything to back up your assertion that Facebook is deliberately lying to advertisers?
- whenchamenia 7y agoIt is well known in sv that most if not all social media companies keep inflated numbers for investors, annother for sales and marketing, and a thrid for internal/technical use. I would like to see any evidince that this does not happen. As it stands, your claim is the one that needs to be backed up.
- dahfizz 7y agoYou're asserting that X is happening, so the burden of proof is on you. However, I think the lack of any forementioned lawsuits is strong evidence that the situation is at least a little more nuanced. If an internet commentor came up with the idea for a lawsuit with all of 5 minutes of thought, then I promise you that the teams of lawyers that the advertisers employ have also already thought of that, and Facebook's lawyers have also already thought of that and have made sure to limit illegal behavior. Facebook is not stupid enough to tell a bald faced lie to advertisers and hope that nobody finds out. I would be confident in saying that Facebook has very specific metrics that they present. They aren't going to shrug their shoulders and say "eh, we have about X users". They be careful to say something like "we serve X requests per day" or "we have X numbers of engagements from people". They will make specific and factually correct statements. Those statements may very well be crafted to mislead people, but Facebook has every incentive to make sure they are not actually lying. It's not like they are starved for people buying ad space. In general, I think it's pretty arogant and ignorant to claim you have a perfect understanding of a situation that you have no actual insight into. It is always safe to assume that there are better informed people who have thought a lot more about any given issue than you have.
- throwaway94843 7y agoFacebook has laughably weak moderation. Twitter, despite having stricter moderation (which seldom seems to result in consequences), seems to have an even bigger problem. An election in a certain country (I'm wary of even mentioning the name of that country, lest I be bombarded) exposed a huge army of dubious accounts shutting down dissent. In another country, a network of Twitter bots attempted to start a race war. Then there are the 100k+ follower accounts that seem to get away with blatant incitement and rule-breaking, and Twitter is too afraid of a backlash to shut them down, even when they admit to having multiple admins (something that should disqualify them from the blue checkmark). WhatsApp seems to be an even more pernicious vector of viral garbage...why it doesn't disable forwarding entirely (or forwarding to groups) remains a mystery. It isn't an SV phenomenon: in another recent election, WeChat was used to spread fake electoral propaganda. It may be time, for the sake of democracy, and stability in the world to "de-platform" the platforms entirely. The other option would be for remorseful founders to allow them to be swamped with spam (it might provide plausible deniability to shareholders), and be killed off that way.
- udfalkso 7y agoModeration is an extremely hard problem to deal with well. Have you ever attempted to manage a community?
- zxcb1 7y agoThere are over two billion people on there. How about paying their users for finding and reporting content? A reputation system to find and pay trustworthy people to clean up. Thereby delegating the task back to the scale where it belongs, some money and incentives too.
- udfalkso 7y agoHow do you decide who to trust?
- panarky 7y agoI've been thinking about a online bounty hunter service to do exactly this. Next step - how to prevent Sybil accounts created by the bounty hunters from generating new mal-content on an industrial scale for bounty hunters to identify for reward.
- eyeareque 7y agoDid fb refund all of the ad money spend on these accounts? Let me guess: No.
- bbcfake 7y ago3 billions accounts less in advertise stats .. how many advertiser is paying over price based on fake statistics ..