The 70-page report released on Thursday by PlainSite, an independent research center led by Aaron Greenspan, says that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg regularly deceives investors and the public. The number of real accounts in the social network is overvalued by 50%.
Facebook claims to have over 2 billion monthly active users (MAU). But the situation with the user base is much worse than investors think. “Facebook is lying to the public about the scale of the problem with fake accounts, which probably exceed 50% of the entire database. Official figures - many of which Fcaebook stopped publishing quarterly - are internally contradictory and even ridiculous, and the company has lost control of its own product.” say the report’s authors.
Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly admitted that growth at any cost is his only priority. But this time his priorities can play a cruel joke with him. Ultimately, the current situation is just the last sign that Facebook - once one of the most successful companies in the world - is doomed to follow CompuServe and AOL, according to PlainSite.
Customers buy ads on Facebook, based on the fact that the social network can target ads to more than 2 billion real people. In case the researchers' data is correct and half the users are bots, companies throw their money down the drain.
Fake accounts are programmed to click on ads or click "Like" in random order to trick the bots detection algorithms. Fake accounts look real if there is no clear pattern in their actions.
Fake Facebook accounts cheat advertisers and mislead other users at risk of fraud, fake news, extortion and other forms of cheating, the report's authors write.
source: cnn.com
Facebook claims to have over 2 billion monthly active users (MAU). But the situation with the user base is much worse than investors think. “Facebook is lying to the public about the scale of the problem with fake accounts, which probably exceed 50% of the entire database. Official figures - many of which Fcaebook stopped publishing quarterly - are internally contradictory and even ridiculous, and the company has lost control of its own product.” say the report’s authors.
Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly admitted that growth at any cost is his only priority. But this time his priorities can play a cruel joke with him. Ultimately, the current situation is just the last sign that Facebook - once one of the most successful companies in the world - is doomed to follow CompuServe and AOL, according to PlainSite.
Customers buy ads on Facebook, based on the fact that the social network can target ads to more than 2 billion real people. In case the researchers' data is correct and half the users are bots, companies throw their money down the drain.
Fake accounts are programmed to click on ads or click "Like" in random order to trick the bots detection algorithms. Fake accounts look real if there is no clear pattern in their actions.
Fake Facebook accounts cheat advertisers and mislead other users at risk of fraud, fake news, extortion and other forms of cheating, the report's authors write.
source: cnn.com