Facebook suspects to have 275 million duplicate accounts globally

Facebook has reported to have approximately 275 million duplicate accounts out of its 2.50 billion monthly active users in its latest annual report as on December 31, 2019. The social networking site said, “As ofDecember31, 2019, we had 2. 50 billion MAUs (monthly active users), an increase of 8 per cent from December 31, 2018. Users in India, Indonesia and the Philippines represented key sources of growth in2019, relative to the same period in2018.

It said, “In the fourth quarter of 2019, we estimated that duplicate accounts may have represented approximately 11 per cent of our worldwide MAUs. We believe the percentage of duplicate accounts is meaningfully higher in developing markets such as the Philippines and Vietnam, as compared to more developed markets.”

According to Facebook, a duplicate account is one that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account. While “false” accounts have been divided into two categories user-misclassified accounts, where users have created personal profiles for a business, organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet and violating accounts, which represent user profiles that the site determine are intended to be used for purposes that violate FB’s terms of service, such as spamming. Facebook has said in the fourth quarter of 2019, it is estimated that false accounts may have represented approximately 5 per cent of its worldwide MAUs.