More than 83mn Facebook accounts are 'false' or 'duplicate'

In a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission of the US, the company said 8.7 per cent of its 955 million user base translating into 83 million are not real accounts.

According to Facebook, 4.8 per cent of its wider user base are "duplicate" accounts an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account as of June 30, 2012.

In addition to this there are "false" accounts, which in turn can be divided into two categories user-misclassified accounts and undesirable accounts.

User-misclassified accounts are those where users have created personal profiles for a business, organisation, or non-human entity such as a pet and undesirable accounts represent user profiles that are intended to be used for purposes that violate our terms of service, such as spamming.

"As of June 30, 2012, we estimate user-misclassified accounts may have represented approximately 2.4 per cent of our worldwide monthly active users (MAUs) and undesirable accounts may have represented approximately 1.5 per cent of our worldwide MAUs," Facebook said.

The social networking giant further noted that the percentage of accounts that are duplicate or false is

meaningfully lower in developed markets such as the United States or Australia and higher in developing markets such as Indonesia and Turkey.

As of June 30, 2012, Facebook had 955 million MAUs, an increase of 29 per cent from a year ago period.

Users in Brazil, India, and Indonesia represented

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