Facebook blocked over 1.3 billion fake accounts in Oct-Dec, says 'we take a hard line'

Facebook on Sunday announced it has disabled more than 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December of 2020. The announcement comes ahead of this week’s US House Energy and Commerce Committee examination of how social media platforms, such as Facebook, are handling misinformation online. The California-based tech behemoth, in a press release on March 22, highlighted steps it is taking to tackle misinformation, which include blocking of fake accounts, targeting bait content, and building a global network of fact-checkers.

"We take a hard line against this activity and block millions of fake accounts each day, most of them at the time of creation. Between October and December of 2020, we disabled more than 1.3 billion of them," the social media company said.

How Facebook is fighting misinformation?

Facebook said it is taking a "hard line" against fake accounts, blocking millions of them each day. Facebook said that most of the fake accounts it blocked last year, happened on the day of creation. The social media firm added that it also investigates covert foreign and domestic influence operations that rely on fake accounts and take them down as soon as they are detected. “Over the past three years, we’ve removed over 100 networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) from our platform and keep the public informed about our efforts through our monthly CIB reports,” Facebook said. 

Facebook said other ways to limit misinformation online is by targeting bait content. Facebook said that the company has built a network of people, who identify inauthentic behaviour on its platform and enforce measures. The social media giant said it also uses artificial intelligence to detect fraud and enforce policies against spam accounts. Facebook said it has built a global network of more than 80 fact-checkers, who review content in over 60 languages. The company added that whenever a content is rated as false, it reduces the distribution so fewer people see it. The company said it also labels the post with a warning, which massively brings down the rate. 

Facebook said it now has more than 35,000 people working on these challenges, adding that it’s investment in both people and technology, such as artificial intelligence, is helping the company make enormous progress in tackling misinformation. Facebook said with the help of its AI systems, it has blocked more than 12 million pieces of content spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

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