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Facebook says it has removed more than three billion fake accounts

The purge took place between October and March.
The purge took place between October and March. The purge took place between October and March.

Facebook says it has removed more than three billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months.

What Facebook’s new report Thursday does not say, though, is how many it also missed.

The increase shows the challenges Facebook faces in removing accounts created by computers to spread spam, fake news and other objectionable material.

Even as Facebook’s detection tools get better, so do the efforts by the creators of these fake accounts.

Facebook inquiry
Facebook inquiry The Facebook logo (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Facebook says most of the fake accounts were blocked “within minutes” of their creation, before someone saw and reported them to the company.

Facebook has 2.4 billion active monthly users.

Most of the removed accounts will not count in this figure.

Still, the company estimates that 5% of its monthly active users are fake.