New research from digital identity security specialists, ID Crypt Global, reveals that the number of fake social media accounts on TikTok has soared by more than 230% in the past year alone, serving as an unwelcome distraction to those behind the scenes who are already trying to combat content-related issues such as harassment, self-harm ideation, misinformation, and child sexual exploitation.
ID Crypt Global has analysed how the number of fake accounts being removed from Facebook and TikTok has changed over the past year* before looking at the types of banned and troubling content that special media platforms are battling to keep under control.
The data reveals that in Q1 2024, Facebook removed 631m fake accounts. This marks an annual increase of 48.1% compared to Q1 2023’s number of 426m.
But this significant increase is nothing compared to that recorded by TikTik. In the past year, the number of fake account removals on the platform has increased by 232.5%, including a 146.1% increase in the past quarter alone.
But it’s not just fake accounts that social media platforms are dealing with. In fact, dealing with fake accounts may well be distracting the platforms from another significant problem in the shape of banned or illegal content being spread like wildfire.
According to data from Snapchat, action was taken against more than 3.6m accounts for spreading banned or illegal content between July - December 2023 alone.
36.6% of these enforcements were due to sexually explicit content.
25.9% of bans, warnings, or lockings were due to content promoting bullying or harassment, and 17.9% were due to spam.
Other reasons for enforcement include content surrounding drugs (4.6%), child sexual exploitation (5.7%), hate speech (2.7%), threats of violence (2.3%), and self-harm/suicide (0.8%).
Despite fake news and misinformation being a widely discussed issue, and one that is agreed to bring universal harm to public discourse and the broad understanding of vital world subjects, only 0.04% of account enforcements on Snapchat were due to the spread of misinformation.
CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented:
“There’s no doubt that social media platforms face a daunting task when trying to rid themselves of fake accounts and dangerous content. And we would argue that fale information and fake news are among the damaging things being spread online, yet these platforms don’t seem to be doing much about it.
This might be because misinformation is often difficult to spot and therefore hard to remove. But it’s clear that social media platforms need to be more proactive in limiting the spread of misinformation, or at least mitigating the impact.
This is especially true when it comes to doctored or fake images and videos which can promote dangerous falsehoods while appearing, to the naked eye, to be completely reliable and true. The good news is that enabling users to instantly identify fake images is easy, if only the world’s most influential platforms would take the simple steps to make it happen.”
Data tables and sources