01 July 2015 09:34:47 IST

Instagram has 8% fake accounts: Study

WSJ finds that despite purging by the photo-sharing site, the percentage is higher

About eight per cent of Instagram accounts appear to be run by computer-generated bots, according to Italian security researchers. The Wall Street Journal’s article, published in CMO Today, reported that the percentage is much higher, even after Instagram purged millions of fake accounts last year in December.

The likelihood of an account being fake is based on the frequency of content posted on Facebook over Instagram. It can be also accessed by the ratio of accounts that are followed, to the followers. The report stated that usually, spam bots follow about 41 users for one follower, whereas, actual users follow one for one ratio.

Spam accounts

Fake accounts usually are created to promote a person or a product. These spam accounts, however, can turn off real users, who may simply abandon the platform because of their experience. In 2014, Facebook had about two per cent fake accounts, whereas, Twitter had a little less than five per cent fake users, WSJ informed.

Read the whole story here .