Facebook is credited with connecting almost a billion people online and probably unfairly credited with breaking up many a marriage.

[READ: Should There Be A Rulebook for Facebook Relationships?]

The popular social networking site is in the news today after admitting that there are over 83 MILLION fake accounts in their database!

Details…

As Facebook’s numbers approach a billion, they admit in company filings published this week, that at least 8.7% of its 955 million active accounts broke its rules.

Those 83 million (give or take) bogus accounts consist of the following:

Duplicate profiles – belonging to already registered users – made up 4.8% of its membership figure.

User-misclassified accounts amounted to 2.4% – including personal profiles for businesses or pets – while 1.5% of users were described as “undesirable”.

The estimate comes at a time of growing concern about the effectiveness of marketing on the platform.

Facebook defined duplicates as “an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account.”

It said profiles were “user-misclassified” if “users have created personal profiles for a business, organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet”.

It added that “undesirable” accounts included those using fake names which were “intended to be used for purposes that violate our terms of service, such as spamming”. (source)

According to FoxNews, Facebook’s share price was affected after the alarming news and dipped below $20 on Thursday after their report.

“There are “inherent challenges” in measuring usage,” the social network said.

“We are continually seeking to improve our ability to identify duplicate or false accounts and estimate the total number of such accounts, and such estimates may be affected by improvements or changes in our methodology”.

Just FYI… the number of “real” users is important for Facebook in order to sell advertising. Facebook shares are down almost 50 percent from its $38 May IPO.

Are you following a few “fake” friends?

You never know! StraightFromTheA on Facebook is really “REAL” tho…

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