Facebook banned a whopping 2.2 billion fake accounts in Q1 2019 — almost twice as much as the previous quarter (FB)

On Thursday, the Silicon Valley tech giant released the third edition of its Community Standards Enforcement report , a public report that details the company's efforts to keep its platform clear of fake accounts, abusive material, illegal activity, spam, and other nefarious content.

It details a striking jump in the number of fake accounts it took action against: 2.19 billion were banned in Q1 2019, up from 1.2 billion in Q4 2018. In a blog post, VP of Integrity Guy Rosen wrote of this trend: "The amount of accounts we took action on increased due to automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time."

The data illustrates the sheer volume of malicious activity still ongoing on Facebook's platform: It has 2.38 billion genuine monthly active users in total on the social network.

This story is developing...

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice . (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop .

Selected stories:

Years of Mark Zuckerberg's old Facebook posts have vanished. The company says it 'mistakenly deleted' them.

Car-bomb fears and stolen prototypes: Inside Facebook's efforts to protect its 80,000 workers around the globe

Facebook quietly killed its Building 8 skunkworks unit as it reshuffles its cutting-edge experiments and hardware

Leaked Andreessen Horowitz data reveals how much Silicon Valley startup execs really get paid, from CEOs to Sales VPs

NOW WATCH: I tried the $1,980 Samsung Galaxy Fold and it's impressive for a first-generation foldable phone, though far from perfect