--- title: "Facebook Says It Has Shut Down 5.4 Billion Fake Accounts in 2019" description: "In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the social media company has nixed 5.4 billion fake accounts in 2019 alone." date: "2019-11-14" modified: "2019-11-14" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-shut-down-5-billion-fake-accounts" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "facebook" - "fake news" - "mark zuckerberg" - "the digest" --- # Facebook Says It Has Shut Down 5.4 Billion Fake Accounts in 2019 ![In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the social media company has nixed 5.4 billion fake accounts in 2019 alone.]() *\Image: Victor Tangermann\* ## A Growing Problem In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the social media company has nixed 5.4 billion fake accounts in 2019 alone, [according to *CNN*]() — which is two thirds of the global population, or four times the population of China. It's a dizzying quantity of fake accounts. And the trend is ticking up: the company only deleted 3.3 billion fake accounts in all of 2018. Between just April and September of this year alone, it removed 3.2 billion, [twice as many]() as in the entirety of 2018. The [transparency report]() that came along with the announcement also revealed that Facebook shut down seven million instances of hate speech between July and September. That's in part due to Facebook's new [AI-powered content flagging algorithm]() approach to blocking hate speech on the platform. ## Fake News Combating fake news has become an increasingly important topic in light of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. Zuckerberg [was grilled]() by a panel of civil rights leaders two weeks ago over his company's failures to moderate misleading political ads. But are billions of fake accounts really as big of a problem as it sounds? In today's call, Zuckerberg immediately tried to play down the significance of the stats. "Because our numbers are high doesn't mean there's that much more harmful content," he told reporters. "It just means we're working harder to identify this content and that's why it's higher." **READ MORE:** [Facebook has shut down 5.4 billion fake accounts this year]() \[*CNN*\] **More on fake accounts:** *[Facebook: Misleading Political Ads Are Important “Discourse”]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()