Facebook suspends 30,000 fake accounts to stop spread of scam

Lately, Google, Facebook and many other companies have been serious about controlling the spread of fake news. On Thursday, the social networking giant suspended 30,000 fake accounts in France to stop the spread of fake news, spam and misleading information.

This move has been made 10 days prior to the first round of the contested French presidential election. Moreover, it is considered to be the most aggressive move taken by Facebook against the fake accounts that violate the terms of service. Usually, Facebook was involved in just responding to complaints. One reason for Facebook to take such a move is due to the intense pressure it is facing in Europe.

Facebook Working to Remove Fake Profiles

The governments across the continent are coming up with new laws and fines. These are to meant to make the company take quick action to weed out the extremist propaganda and other content that actually violate the local laws.

It is not only Facebook that is facing the pressure. Even other social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube are facing intensified pressure as the elections in France and Germany are nearing. In France, Facebook has already come up with a programme to use outside fast-checkers in order to combat fake news in the users' news feeds.

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Besides weeding out 30,000 fake accounts, the company took out the full-page ads in best-selling German newspapers in order to educate readers in how they need to spot fake news. The company has announced in its blog past that its priority is to remove the suspect accounts with huge volumes of posting activity and massive audience. Facebook is using automated pattern recognition in order to identify repeated posting of the same content.