Facebook is a serious business, and there are rules to follow. That's why the social media giant is getting ready to close more than 83 million accounts. These accounts are fakes, frauds, imposters and spammers. They are also Facebook accounts that users set up for their dogs, cats and babies.
On August 1, 2012, Facebook " ... said that 8.7 percent of its 955 million monthly active users worldwide are actually duplicate or false accounts," reported ABC News affiliate KVUE. Those are the accounts being targeted for closure.
Why is Facebook making this bold move? "On Facebook we have a really large commitment in general to finding and disabling false accounts," Facebook's chief security officer Joe Sullivan told CNN. "Our entire platform is based on people using their real identities."
Facebook has a place for pages dedicated to cats, ferrets and softball teams, but people are not using them correctly. Instead users are setting up personal pages for improper usage. That includes people who create dummy accounts for Facebook stalking purposes. Anyone who wants to maintain a page for Rover or Fluffy needs to use Facebook's "Pages" option.
What will happen to the accounts that Facebook deems fake or otherwise inappropriate? These accounts will be closed, and their creators will not be able to access any of the information or photos stored on the site. The information will be stored by Facebook in a sort of virtual dead zone, and their creators will be unable to open a new account without direct authorization from the company.
There is no target date for the affected Facebook accounts to be closed.
Comments