Facebook Cracks Down on Fake Accounts

As reported by Fortune, Facebook and Instagram recently filed a lawsuit against three individuals and four Chinese companies in U.S. federal court for, among other things, trademark and service mark infringement, dilution and cybersquatting — which involves registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else’s trademark.

Facebook alleges that, since 2017, the named companies have sold fake accounts, likes and followers both on Facebook and on Instagram. The fake accounts at issue are often purchased by users to artificially inflate their number of followers in order to appeal to real Facebook and Instagram users.

As reported by TechNode, combatting the proliferation of fake accounts, which are normally created using information stolen from real users, has been an ongoing battle for social media platforms. In 2018, Facebook and Instagram reportedly deleted over 2.1 billion fake accounts between January and September.

Facebook Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Paul Grewal, reportedly affirmed that “inauthentic activity has no place on [the Facebook] platform,” noting that the company devotes “significant resources to detecting and stopping this behaviour, including disabling millions of fake accounts every day.”