Facebook hunts for fake accounts

Facebook removed more than 3 billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months, the company said Thursday. Nearly all of them were caught before they had a chance to become “active” users of the social network. In a new report, Facebook said it saw a “steep increase” in the creation of abusive, fake accounts. While most were blocked “within minutes” of their creation, the volume of new accounts meant not only that Facebook caught more fake accounts, but that more slipped through. The company estimates that 5 percent of its 2.4 billion monthly active users are fake accounts.