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 Louis Bedigian, Benzinga Staff WriterThe 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 (KO) pledged 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.
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?
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.
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).
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.
One word for FaceBook... thpthpthpssssszzzzztttt!
MORE ON MSN MONEY
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Morningstar Inc. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Morningstar Inc. Quotes delayed by up to 15 minutes, except where indicated otherwise. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by Morningstar Inc.
LATEST POSTS
Some ETF investors are worried that the unrest will cause economic damage.
FIDELITY VIEWPOINTS
- How to sell covered calls - Fidelity Investments
- Savvy year-end tax moves to consider now - Fidelity Investments
- Seven ways to prepare for tax changes
- Five reasons an annual review is crucial - Fidelity Investments
- Take a look at mid caps now - Fidelity Investments
- State of the sector: Health care - Fidelity Investments
VIDEO ON MSN MONEY
ABOUT
Top Stocks provides analysis about the most noteworthy stocks in the market each day, combining some of the best content from around the MSN Money site and the rest of the Web.
Contributors include professional investors and journalists affiliated with MSN Money.
Follow us on Twitter @topstocksmsn.

