Report claims as many as half of Facebook accounts are fake

Facebook Slides After Report Claims 50% Of Its Users Are Fake

As bad as things have been for Facebook since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke one year ago, one team of researchers, led by a former peer of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard who created one of the original Facebook prototypes, thinks the reality of the company's circumstances is even more dire than investors realize.

In a report published Thursday by PlainSite, an independent research shop led by Aaron Greenspan, analysts calculated that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been regularly lying to investors and the public about the company's user metrics, and that the company could be overestimating the number of users by as much as 50%.

The team detailed their findings in a 70-page report published on their website.

"Facebook has been lying to the public about the scale of its problem with fake accounts, which likely exceed 50% of its network. Its official metrics—many of which it has stopped reporting quarterly—are self-contradictory and even farcical. The company has lost control of its own product."

Apparently, many of these fake accounts are just "click bots" that randomly click on ads. What this means is, Facebook is scamming its advertisers by falsifying advertising metrics so they can charge higher rates for ads.

You can read the original report here, if you wish.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Damm Russians

originally posted by: pavil
a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Damm Russians

A winnar is you!

YASSS!

Crash baby crash!

I LOVE watching FB stock bleed.

FB's stock has been on a precipitous decline for the last year.

People like me are leaving in droves. Tired of their crap.

No one patch up the holes, let the bleeding continue until there's nothing but fake accounts to spy on. Bunch of criminal pricks.

Facebook : A free social service that sells all your information to companies.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Apparently, many of these fake accounts are just "click bots" that randomly click on ads. What this means is, Facebook is scamming its advertisers by falsifying advertising metrics so they can charge higher rates for ads.

That sounds intentional and criminal to me. Who would benefit monetarily from that other than Facebook. Facebook has never noticed this before?

Who doesn't have a few fake accounts for when the facebook police strike lmao

originally posted by: pavil
a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Apparently, many of these fake accounts are just "click bots" that randomly click on ads. What this means is, Facebook is scamming its advertisers by falsifying advertising metrics so they can charge higher rates for ads.

That sounds intentional and criminal to me. Who would benefit monetarily from that other than Facebook. Facebook has never noticed this before?

Yea, wouldn't that violate something the SEC would/should investigate??

a reply to: pavil
Under rated comment. Made me laugh anyway.

Who would have thought Americans would shape the opinions of others online?

Makes me think of Reddit with bought and payed for subs(montering and controlling the posts, editing the up or down voting and removing the ones that don’t fit the established goals and views).they tout certain ideologial views to the masses under the guise of open discussion.That’s a whole other story though.

originally posted by: TheShadow21
Who doesn't have a few fake accounts for when the facebook police strike lmao

This is a fair point as well.

Their policies, as far as censorship is concerned, have gotten so bad that creating fake accounts might actually be a major contributor to this.

At last count, FB had 214 million unique users in the US alone.

If 50% of those are fake accounts then it means half of FBs business is fake. It's an online Potemkin Village.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan


Well, I know I have one, I use it to check up on prospective employees and the nudniks we already hired. Apparently they now all have f-Instagram accounts too so I got me one of those as well.

It's way more than 50% because all of the meme Lords I know have several accounts because they keep getting banned for 30 days at a time.
And if you think Facebook is tanking now just wait till the SEC brings charges against Zuckerberg for divesting tons of his own stock before bad news comes out

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus
I have a Facebook account that I set up years ago. I quickly decided that I had neither the time nor the interest to maintain it, and it has sat gathering digital dust ever since.

I keep telling myself I'm going to delete it as a form of protest.


a reply to: dashen
I can see Zuck transferring his billions to offshore banks and fleeing the country. Once advertisers start lining up to sue him, he very well might.

Hopefully this news causes their stock to crash since 50% of their business is based on a lie.

Yup, Russians, or Nazis if it’s your cup of tea.
a reply to: pavil

Something occurred to me while we were discussing this over the Q thread. If a large fraction of Facebook accounts are just bots that click on ads randomly, then probably the overwhelming majority of all ad clicks generated by Facebook are fake.

I definitely see a class-action lawsuit stemming from this report, brought by companies who were tricked into spending too much money on ads by those bogus traffic numbers.

Nvm

Everybody I know has some fake accounts, including my dog.
Everybody who ever played any game on FB and needed neighbors and "friends" in the game set up some fake pages.
People will always find a way...lol

originally posted by: Athetos
a reply to: pavil


Makes me think of Reddit with bought and payed for subs(montering and controlling the posts, editing the up or down voting and removing the ones that don’t fit the established goals and views).they tout certain ideologial views to the masses under the guise of open discussion.That’s a whole other story though.

Yeah, it's quite amazing to see that happen in real time on Reddit.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan
Facebook is actually a pretty small community even internet wise, I have been on Video game sites with a wider broad of members, and way better percentage of fake people. Its just people randomly putting things online they do, I know that's what I use it for. But then again, like the other medias before ie mass medias. Its all grossly inflated to be something other then it is.

But then again the same can be said about the rest of the internet, or even everyday life as well. Its all projecting something much bigger and grander then it is. To say its fake, may be an understatement. Like everything else, it has its glory days, kind of like this site, slowly sinking into obscurity, or worse, irrelevance.