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Facebook User Numbers Are Off: 10 Percent Of Reported Users Are Not Human

10 Percent Of Facebook Users Aren't Human
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By 

Deputy Managing Editor Of Impact & Innovation, The Huffington Post

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TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY ISABELLE TOUSSAINT - A dog stands in front of a computer screen with a facebook page opened on it, on January 4, 2013 in Lille, Northern France. AFP PHOTO / DENIS CHARLET (Photo credit should read DENIS CHARLET/AFP/Getty Images)

Facebook loves to talk about its ridiculously high number of users. Yes, Facebook has a whole lot of accounts, but many of them aren't humans. eMarketer released an analysis of Facebook's audience, and it turns out more than 10 percent of Facebook's reported monthly users are not human. Over 100 million active Facebook users are pets, objects or brands.

At the end of March, Facebook announced that it has 1.11 billion monthly active users. eMarketer found that only 889.3 million of those users were humans.

Facebook is aware of the issue and knows that some of their user estimates may be inaccurate. In a report filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2012, shortly after the company's initial public offering, Facebook wrote: "We estimate that 'duplicate' accounts (an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account) may have represented approximately 4.8% of our worldwide MAUs as of June 30, 2012." eMarketer may be counting those numbers differently, or the number of fake accounts may have gone up in the past year.

In 2012, Facebook estimated that 1.5 percent of Facebook accounts are "undesirable" or spam accounts. A lot are just accounts for users' pets. People have been making Facebook pages for animals for years. CNN wrote about the trend back in 2010, estimating that there were "at least a few thousand profile pages for dogs and cats along with less common pets such as birds, hamsters, ferrets, turtles, fish and rabbits."

[h/t Quartz]

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Before You Go

9 Common Facebook Scams
Clickjacking(01 of09)
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Clickjackers on Facebook entice users to copy and paste text into their browser bar by posting too-good-to-be-true offers and eye-catching headlines. Once the user infects his own computer with the malicious code, the clickjackers can take control of his account, spam his friends and further spread their scam. For example, clickjacking schemes hit Facebook soon after bin Laden's death and spread like wildfire by purporting to offer users a glimpse at video or photos of bin Laden's death. (credit:Facebook)
Fake Polls Or Questionnaires(02 of09)
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If you click on an ad or a link that takes you to questionnaire on a site outside Facebook, it's best to close the page. When you complete a fake quiz, you help a scammer earn commission. Sometimes the quiz may ask you to enter your mobile number before you can view your results. If the scammers get your number, they could run up charges on your account. (credit:YouTube)
Phishing Schemes(03 of09)
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Phishers go after your credentials (username, password and sometimes more), then take over your profile, and may attempt to gain access to your other online accounts. Phishing schemes can be difficult to spot, especially if the scammers have set up a page that resembles Facebook's login portal. (credit:Facebook)
Phony Email Or Message(04 of09)
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Facebook warns users to be on the lookout for emails or messages from scammers masquerading as "The Facebook Team" or "Facebook." These messages often suggest "urgent action" and may ask the user to update his account. They frequently contain links to malware sites or virus-ridden attachments. They may even ask for your username and password. The best advice Facebook offers is to report the sender and delete the messages without clicking anything. (credit:Getty)
Money Transfer Scam(05 of09)
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If a friend sent you a desperate-sounding Facebook chat message or wall post asking for an emergency money transfer, you'd want to help, right? Naturally. That's what makes this scam so awful. The point is to get you to wire money to scammers via Western Union or another transfer service. (credit:Wikimedia Commons)
Fake Friend Request(06 of09)
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Not all friend requests come from real people, despite Facebook's safeguards against bots. Some Facebook accounts exist purely to establish broad connections for spamming or extracting personal data from users, so watch out whose friend requests you accept. (credit:Facebook)
Fake Page Spam(07 of09)
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Malicious pages, groups or event invitations aim to trick the user into performing actions that Facebook considers "abusive." For instance, a fake invite might offer a prize if you forward it to all your friends or post spammy content on their walls. Sometimes a scammer will set up fake pages as a front for a clickjacking or phishing scheme.
Rogue Apps(08 of09)
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Malicious apps are pretty common on Facebook these days. They can be a cover for phishing, malware, clickjacking or money transfer schemes. Oftentimes, the apps look convincingly real enough for users to click "Allow," as they would do with a normal Facebook app. However, rogue apps use this permission to spread spam through your network of friends. For example, the recent "Facebook Shutdown" scam spread by claiming that Facebook would delete all inactive accounts except those that confirmed via app installation.
The Koobface Worm(09 of09)
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The Koobface worm is getting on in years (it first appeared in late 2008) and has been mostly scrubbed from the site, but Facebook still warns users to look out for it. Koobface spreads across social networks like Facebook via posts containing a link that claims to be an Adobe Flash Player update. Really, the link downloads malware that will infect your computer, hijack your Facebook profile and spam all your friends with its malicious download link. This worm affects mostly Windows users. (credit:Flickr: sk8geek)
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