Facebook updated its site integrity system today in an effort to crack down on fake likes, a move that the company says will benefit legitimate users and page owners.
The company says the improved automated efforts will detect and remove Likes obtained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users or purchased mass Likes. While Facebook says it has always protected against these threats, the new system will specifically be tailored to identify and erase suspect Likes.
“A Like that doesn’t come from someone truly interested in connecting with a Page benefits no one…” the company wrote in a post on the Facebook Security Page. “Facebook was built on the principle of real identity and we want this same authenticity to extend to Pages. We undoubtedly expect that this will be a positive change for anyone using Facebook, and we look forward to helping even more people share and connect with the friends and brands they care about.”
The social giant claims that “less than 1% of likes on any given Page will be removed” and the new system “will not have any sizeable impact on any Page, providing they and their affiliates have been abiding by our terms.”
The announcement comes less than a month after a report surfaced that 83 million Facebook accounts are fake and a startup told TechCrunch that 80% of its Facebook Ad clicks came from bots.
Facebook says the improvement will benefit users and brands, as users will connect to the pages they actually want and pages will have a more accurate measurement of fans and demographics.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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