Facebook eliminates 1.3bn fake accounts in last 3 months of 2020

Facebook announced on Monday that it had taken down 1.3bn fake accounts from its site in the last three months of 2020 as part of a blog post explaining how it tackles misinformation.

The company also removed more than 12m pieces of content about Covid-19 and vaccines that global health experts flagged as misinformation.

The press release comes as the US House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee is set to examine tech companies such as Facebook this week and how they combat misinformation online.

Facebook said that “tackling misinformation actually requires addressing several challenges including fake accounts, deceptive behavior, and misleading and harmful content”.

Facebook claimed that over the past three years, it had removed over 100 networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) from the platform.

It had built teams and systems using artificial intelligence to detect and enforce against inauthentic behavior tactics behind a lot of clickbait.

The tech giant also employs 80 independent fact-checkers that review content in over 60 languages and to add warning labels to false information.

In total, the company has over 35,000 people working on these challenges.