Facebook removed 3.2 billion fake accounts and tens of millions of posts flagged as child abuse

Facebook has been under pressure for ‘not doing enough’ to moderate its platform, but the latest figures show the company has been improving its algorithms.

Now it’s boasting that it proactively detects and removes more than 99% of all child abuse posts, and is aiming to soon do the same on Instagram.

The social giant has released its latest transparency report, which should give us an idea about the overall progress on moderating the platform.

The previous one showed Facebook had removed 2.2 billion fake accounts during the first quarter of this year.

Since then, it’s removed an additional 3.2 billion accounts as a result of improving its automated detection systems.

The platform is known for its impressive scale, and Facebook estimates about 5 percent of its 2.45 billion monthly active user accounts are fake.

Interestingly, the company has integrated Instagram figures in the report for the first time.

Content enforcement on the platform has four main areas of focus: child abuse, firearm and drug sales, suicide, and terrorist propaganda.

The company removed tens of millions of posts related to child nudity of sexual exploitation.

Specifically, it deleted 11.6 million pieces of content from July to September this year, which is almost double the amount from the three months prior.

Facebook says its algorithms are so good now that they detected 99 % of the content it removed. Instagram removed an additional 754,000 pieces of content at a rate of detection of just under 95 percent.

It did the same by removing most of the Posts selling firearms, drugs, suicide attempts, terrorism and others

Facebook has been under a lot of pressure as of late for not having a good policy with regards to political advertising on its platform.

That said, the company is trying to do something about all the bots and fake accounts by testing a video selfie feature as an additional requirement for setting up an account.