Alert! Facebook took down 1.3 billion fake accounts between Oct-Dec

Mark Zuckerberg owned Facebook has finally revealed that it took down 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December and that it had over 35,000 people working on tackling misinformation on its platform.

The company also removed more than 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 and vaccines that global health experts flagged as misinformation, it said in a blog post.

False claims and conspiracies about the coronavirus vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter during the pandemic.

Guy Rosen, VP Integrity of Facebook said that the company had created a global network of more than 80 independent fact-checkers who review content in more than 60 languages.

Rosen further revealed that when fact-checkers flag content as false, Facebook reduces its distribution, essentially lowering its reach. It also adds a warning label with more contextual information on such content. He noted that 95% of the time people do not click to view the content when they see a warning label.

Facebook`s disclosure of data on misinformation comes ahead of an inspection by the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce into how technology platforms including Facebook are tackling misinformation.