Just call it 'Fakebook'?

Facebook estimates that it has 83 million fake accounts, which is higher than what it had pegged in the past.

By Benzinga Aug 2, 2012 4:35PM
Credit: © David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Caption: Facebook Inc. signageBy Louis Bedigian, Benzinga Staff Writer

Facebook (FB) has spent a great deal of time promoting the fact that it has more users than any other social network. Up until now, no one knew how many of those users were actually real.


The good news is that Facebook's own estimates, which come from the company's 10-Q, are relatively positive. The company believes that it has 872 million real users (via Mashable). This is a very impressive number.


However, it also means that Facebook is overwhelmed with 83 million fake accounts, or 8.7% of total users.


Facebook defines these fake accounts in a handful of ways:

  • Duplicate Accounts, defined as "an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account." These make up 4.8% of total users.
  • User-Misclassified Accounts, which are produced when a user creates a personal profile for a business, organization, or non-human entity (such as a pet), make up 2.4% of total users.
  • Undesirable Accounts, which are often used for spamming, make up 1.5% of total users.

For a company that claims to have 955 million members, the number of fake accounts is particularly depressing. The number is also much higher than that of fake users that Facebook estimated it had during the last quarter (40 million to 50 million).


Facebook has been struggling over the past two weeks. Since July 26, company shares have lost more than 45% of their value, dropping from $29.34 at market close on July 25 to $20.88 on August 1. Facebook fell another 4% Thursday to close at $20.04.


Some investors and analysts worry that the company does not have an effective business model for monetizing its many users. Others wonder if the company is paying too much for acquisitions.


In June, comScore (SCOR) attempted to prove that Facebook offered an efficient ad platform by releasing the results of a widespread study. At the same time, Ford (F) and Coca-Cola (KOpledged their support for the social network.


One software startup raised questions about phony Facebook accounts this week when it found that as many as 80% of the clicks on its ads appeared to be coming from bots.


More from Benzinga


83Comments
Aug 3, 2012 5:02AM
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Believe me, I enjoy the pet pages on Facebook than most of the people pages on Facebook. The animals seem sweet and enjoyable to be with. I'd rather read about the antics of Floyd and Griffin, bulldogs extraordinaire, and Pixel, le carlin, the pug from France as well as MooMoo the Magnificent the Boston Terrier than about dreary crap about Mitt the **** or disquisitions on how screwed up people's personal lives are. The more I learn about mankind, the more I love cats and dogs.

Aug 3, 2012 2:48AM
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Never had an FB account.  I have enough imaginary friends as it is.
Aug 3, 2012 1:30AM
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Im glad Im not there anymore, to many foreigners, hackers, and pigs sticking their nose in other peoples business.
Aug 3, 2012 1:17AM
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Facebook doesn't know what they have. They have first tried to force people to give them their cellphone numbers to verify identity. Only 1 cell number per account. If they didn't provide a number their accounts were closed as fake no questions asked. How many people don't have cell phones? So now just because you don't have a cell phone, or don't want them having that information for whatever they plan to use it for,  you lose your account as a fake account?
Now they are using some tool that seems to track IP addresses. People all over the internet are very upset that families with only 1 computer are being told they are fake accounts because they are using the same computer to log in. They are getting "multiple account warnings" with "delete" or "claim as main account", then all other family members accounts are disabled even though they are real. Many people have lost their real accounts because this new system is flawed. This has been going on for weeks and I have yet to see 1 story cover the many stressed and overwhelmed users who lost their honest accounts due to some failed attempt to validate accounts. I for one pay lots of money monthly to play games through them. If they take my account  I lose all my money, my game and it's just screw you, you have no way to contact us. It should be illegal. They need to stop blaming their users for their failed stock, and start looking at fixing all of the issues on their site that has their users unhappy. If the users are happy, they in turn would get better results. Why is it that no one covers these stories of how horrible they treat their users, how such a huge company that is positioning itself to be a staple in peoples lives, can deny any sort of customer support?

Aug 3, 2012 12:46AM
Aug 3, 2012 12:05AM
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Ha Ha where is the "Like" button at on this post?
Aug 2, 2012 11:48PM
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My ex-wife made up several accounts when our son was 12 ... in his name or variations of it, for game playing and other such nonsense on FB.  I am sure she's not alone in this endeavor.  FB is a joke ... no life for these folks. 
Aug 2, 2012 11:45PM
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The police use fake accounts all the time to monitor things their "friends" are doing. It's funny and sad to know that people are so dumb they will accept friend requests from people that don't exist.

Aug 2, 2012 11:45PM
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Aspects that has always bothered me about FB are with many companies using it as a communicating link with the public, so that anyone wanting to particpate with the marketing/promotion/contest activities with that company HAS to establish a FB account of their own.

 

Another issue is with the "Like" button on the FB webpage.  Can't it also have a "dislike" and "indifferent" button choices?  Just having a "Like" button to click on gives the FakeBook user a distorted perspective from others.

Aug 2, 2012 11:35PM
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I have a "counter-term" for FB.  When the news media designates it as a "Social Media" web portal, I always counter with saying that FB is a "Vanity Media" web portal.

 

Where I live, a self-absorbed talk-radio morning host doesn't "get it" with the popularity of FB.  If he didn't have a job in radio, chances are he'd be a big user of FB (FakeBook).

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It should be called Fakebook to describe all of the phonies who try to make their life seem better or more important than yours. 
Aug 2, 2012 10:28PM
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ALL a ruse to steal investor money by misstating earning and potential FAKE Book is nothing but a gossip soap opera of connections in a network...I should be worth 3.00 bucks.
Aug 2, 2012 10:13PM
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Okay, "Fakebook" is a good name to include all of the fake accounts, but then what name would you give to LinkedIn to describe all of their fake accounts?

I recently complained to LinkedIn about all of the famous Actors, Actresses, Models, and Sports Celebrities whose names were frequently listed under my "People you may know." The response I received from Customer Service was that my my comments would forwarded to someone.

In the meantime, I have deleted my 650+ Connections, and all of the personal information in my Profile.

Aug 2, 2012 10:11PM
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FB has been exposed for the joke it is.
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Did anyone mention, yet, how many millions of FB accounts are kids under 15 years old with no adquisition power whatsoever?
Aug 2, 2012 8:26PM
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The banks that financed this and the brokerage houses that pushed this deserve to take a hit and a lawsuit for telling theirclients and selling their clients.Zuckerburg,the new bernie madoff,he contributed to obama big time,all your money.,how does it feel to be had.
Aug 2, 2012 8:24PM
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Warning: do not, I repeat, do not pay the nazi punks at investors hub/advfn for a paid membership unless you want the naziz squad to delete your posts they don,t like. Remember they were slapped by the SEC for manipulating posts for their favorite scam. The scammers continue to let stock bashes post lies, etc while deleting rebuttals. 
Aug 2, 2012 8:22PM
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FaceBook has already committed suicide, so why even give it any notice, at all. Hard to navigate, constantly changing and not very trustworthy. I'd just as soon write my personal information on a Trailways Bus Station wall... and feel much safer about the confidentiality of that information.

One word for FaceBook... thpthpthpssssszzzzztttt!

Aug 2, 2012 8:21PM
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With 83 million fake accounts,how many were used to create the illusion of success,was the prospectus a sham,did they fudge figures?Did they fudge accounting?Is facebook a fake?Did zuckerburg pull off a super con?Is this the new DOT-COM  Burst Bubble?Did your broker sell you a pig in the poke?Have you all been had?Want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?
Aug 2, 2012 8:10PM
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The part that scares me is that means there are enough people without a real life that there are 83 million fake facebook accounts..
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