Facebook removed 1.6 billion fake accounts in just three months

What you need to know

• Facebook has released its quarterly transparency report.
• It reveals that the platform has removed an astonishing 1.6 billion fake accounts in just three months.
• Nearly all of those were found by Facebook before they could be reported.

Facebook has released its new quarterly transparency report for Q1 22, revealing that the company removed 1.6 billion fake accounts from its platform in just three months from January to March.

The report is designed to show how Facebook is implementing its policies across 14 different areas on Facebook and 12 on Instagram. Areas include bullying and harassment, hate speech, spam, violence, and more.

A hot topic in the social media world right now is fake/spam accounts, a sticking point in Elon Musk's proposed acquisition of Twitter. This week Musk said his deal to buy Twitter could not move forward without proof that less than 5% of the accounts on the platform are fake. Interestingly, Facebook estimates it has around the same number:

Facebook says its goal "is to remove as many fake accounts on Facebook as we can", prioritizing accounts that seek to cause harm through spam or financial motivations. Facebook's accounts actioned for Q1 2022 actually decreased to 1.6 billion, down from 1.7 billion in the last quarter of 2021. One comforting measure is that Facebook says it found and flagged these accounts in 99.70% of cases and that only a tiny fraction were actually found and reported by users.

Meta says that it can't currently provide similar metrics for fake accounts on Instagram.