Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has intensified its campaign against inauthentic behaviour on its platforms, announcing the removal of over 10 million fake profiles and about 500,000 spam accounts in the first six months of 2025.
The company said the move is part of a broader initiative to combat impersonation, fake engagement and content duplication — a strategy aimed at prioritising originality and ensuring that genuine creators are more visible across the platform.
Meta explained that accounts found to be reposting or recycling content without permission or meaningful edits will face consequences, including reduced reach and loss of access to monetisation tools.
“We’re making progress. In the first half of 2025, we took action on around 500,000 accounts engaged in spammy behaviour or fake engagement. We also removed about 10 million profiles impersonating large content producers,” Meta said in a blog post on Monday.
The company said repeated sharing of unoriginal content — including videos, photos, or text — diminishes the platform’s integrity by drowning out authentic voices and making it difficult for new creators to gain traction.
To support legitimate creators, Meta is rolling out new tools that automatically trace reposted content back to its original source. The company says this will help elevate authentic content and ensure credit goes to the rightful owners.
“Pages and profiles that post mostly original content tend to enjoy wider distribution across Facebook. Simply stitching clips together or adding a watermark will no longer count as meaningful editing. Content that provides real value and tells an authentic story is likely to perform better,” Meta stated.
The company also cautioned against uploading content that carries watermarks from other platforms, saying such posts could result in penalties like reduced distribution or removal of monetisation privileges.
As part of the latest update, Meta has introduced post-level insights on the Professional Dashboard, allowing creators to track the performance of individual posts. Creators can also check their Support Home screen to determine if their content or earnings face potential restrictions.
In a parallel move, Google’s YouTube has issued an update to its monetisation guidelines, announcing that content deemed mass-produced or excessively repetitive will no longer qualify for ad revenue.
The policy update initially caused confusion online, with some creators interpreting it as a clampdown on AI-generated content. However, YouTube later clarified that this is not the case.
“We welcome creators using AI tools to enhance their storytelling, and channels that use AI in their content remain eligible to monetise,” YouTube said in a statement.
Both tech giants say these changes are designed to raise content standards and strengthen protections for creators in an increasingly competitive digital ecosystem.
The post Meta cracks down on fake accounts, deletes 10 million profiles appeared first on Vanguard News.
