That's not to say there aren't lots of dubious accounts to be exploited on Facebook. It that 8.7 percent, or 83 million, of its 955 million accounts are either duplicates or fakes.

Many of those accounts are located in the developing world and were created to feed bots and boost like counts. Businesses that resort to such practices, though, are playing with fire, as in ITworld.

"Eventually," he notes, "even Facebook is likely to figure out what's happening, at which point you could find yourself and/or your business booted off the network." 

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