Facebook’s credibility as an advertising medium has taken a major thwack after the social media giant was forced to reveal that more than 83 million of its user accounts are fake.
The move, which comes just days after digital firm Limited Run claimed that 80% of the clicks on its ads had come from so-called Internet “bots”, has also triggered a new fall in the company’s share price.
Yesterday it slumped to an all-time low of $19.82 at one point, almost half its May initial offering price of $38.
It also follows claims made in a BBC investigation that a rash of fake profiles was a major cause for concern for Facebook advertisers. It found that the large majority of ‘likes’ for a phony firm it set up originated from the Middle East and Asia.
There were 83.09 million fake users in total – 8.7% of Facebook’s 995 million active users – which Facebook classified in three groups.
Duplicate profiles made up 4.8% of the fakes. ‘User-misclassified’ accounts amounted to 2.4%, where Facebook said ‘users have created personal profiles for a business, organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet’.
Some 1.5% were ‘undesirable’ accounts were profiles deemed to be in breach of Facebook’s terms of service. These accounts were believed to have been set up to send out junk email messages.
This week, Facebook director of platform partnerships Ethan Beard, and the director of platform marketing Katie Mitic, each revealed plans to leave the company. They represent the latest of several departures – including that of Facebook’s chief technology officer in June – since the IPO.
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