World News

Facebook Admits to Having Over 60 Million Fake Accounts

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Tony Maples Photography

 

When Facebook executives faced Congress last week, it was reveled that the social media networking website has over 200 million accounts that are duplicates (used by real people) and over 60 million that are complete fakes. Internet and society expert at Harvard, Jonathan L. Zittrain, spoke with the New York Times and explained that it’s in social media platform’s best interest to sign up as many people as possible, so often, fake accounts are not policed as strongly as one would think.

But some people not even associated with Facebook actively seek out fakes to flag their accounts. Technical writer Zachary Elwood has studied fakes and written an article of his findings on Medium. “It’s amazing how sloppy some of these accounts are. I hate liars and I’m drawn to understand stuff like this,” Elwood told the New York Times.

In order to spot fake profiles, check to make sure the majority of the person’s friends match their country of origin. Also, the account’s URL and name should be a close match. And if you aren’t sure someone is a fake, search their name and see if they come up as multiple matches with the same profile photo. If so, something fishy is going on. To report suspicious activity, click on the three dots on their profile photo and click “report.”