Supposedly though FB has held itself (and FBX, which is overall a great product, in particular) as 'fraud-free.'[3] Dunno about that, especially since faking likes is trivial. Anyone who knows how to operate a search engine can do it in less than five minutes.
[1]http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/03/23/online-advertisings-cris... [2]http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2329878/Facebook-Ad-Fra... [3]http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-26/how-facebook...
- "not so long ago everyone thought Facebook was close to saturation"
- "now suddenly they managed to increase the number of users"
Maybe "everyone" was wrong? In any case, faking such numbers on a large scale would require a decent-sized conspiracy among at least a couple of department heads. Also, it would be quite illegal. And, being a digital thing, very easy for someone to prove.
However, it's possible that the way they characterize numbers has changed, but those details would presumably be in the official filings and financial reports. For example, in recent years, the newspapers audit circulation bureau has changed readership numbers to include categories of web users, not just print circulation. And even before the web, the numbers included an estimated number of readers who read non-bought copies of a paper (i.e., papers left at the coffee shop and passed around).
So there could be different standards of counting...in fact, that's a much easier, more legal way of doing things before you start maliciously faking stats.
"Daily Active Users (DAUs). We define a daily active user as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or took an action to share content or activity with his or her Facebook friends or connections via a third-party website or app that is integrated with Facebook, on a given day. We view DAUs, and DAUs as a percentage of MAUs, as measures of user engagement."
Going back to the first SEC Filing from July 2012. There is ONE KEY DIFFERENCE in definition of a DAU.
Jul 2012 DAU: "...or took an action to share content or activity... ...via a third-party website that is integrated with Facebook." Ref: http://investor.fb.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-12-325...
Nov 2013 DAU: "...or took action to share content or activity... ...via a third-party website or app that is integrated with Facebook." Ref: http://investor.fb.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1326801-13-31&...
Wasn't there a story just days ago that reported that a very significant population of Twitter users have never Tweeted? Last year NPR had significant coverage of companies that wrangled and sold armies of fake twitter followers. (That sort of info is much more transparent with Twitter than Facebook)
Why is it impossible to believe that any of the thousands of possible entities aren't farming phony Facebook accounts?
Actually all you would need is a low level manager, a decent hacker (or employee) with skills and a small bot army to inflate the numbers. Considering there's apparently over 83 million fake or duplicate accounts, faking those numbers would be fairly trivial.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/02/tech/social-media/facebook-fak...