Facebook has recently revealed its new AI-tool that is helping the social media giant to detect the creation of fake accounts. The company has stated that its new AI-based tech is called Deep Entity Classification (DEC) and it has proven to be quite effective.
DEC essentially is a machine learning tech that doesn't just observe the activity of suspect accounts but also evaluates the information surrounding it. These surrounding information could include account and page behaviours that the suspicious account interacts with. Facebook has also stated that since using the new tech, it has reduced spam volume and scam accounts by up to 23 per cent.
5% of the 2.89 bn monthly active users are fake
Facebook mentioned on its transparency.facebook.com that DEC has helped the company to combat more than 6.5 billion fake accounts, which were either created by spammers or other malicious actors last year. Most of these accounts were caught during the account creation process itself.
The social media giant still believes that 5 percent of the 2.89 billion monthly active users are likely fake accounts, and Facebook considers these accounts as those that are violating terms of service. These fake accounts could either be scammers, spammers, and those trying to phish vulnerable people for securing personal information for financial or identity theft.
This where DEC shines exceptionally well. The AI-tech takes a sophisticated and holistic approach in identifying and analyzing user behaviour, and when doing so, the tech takes into account over 20,000 features per account. DEC aims to combat the creation of fake accounts that could replicate genuine behaviours. Facebook believes that over time, scammers will learn to get smarter, and DEC will consistently look into those actions and adapt.
As the 2020 US Presidential election is approaching, DEC may end up playing a rather vital role when it comes to fake account creations, campaigns and spamming. Facebook has also noticed that many users from several foreign countries like Iran, Russia and a few others have been using social media to influence news narratives, votes, and regional election matters. And these operations are only getting more and more sophisticated with the passing time.
Last year, Facebook and Twitter pulled down thousands of fake accounts that were promoting pro-Trump messaging using AI tools. These AI tools created images that looked strikingly similar to that of real ones. And with DEC beginning its patrol, Facebook expects such AI-assisted spams will go down.
