Facebook has deleted more than 10 million accounts as part of an ongoing purge of the world’s most popular social network.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said the move was aimed at “cracking down on spammy content” and promoting authentic accounts, however some users have complained about being wrongly caught up in the action.
Facebook confirmed the figure in a blog post, revealing that more than a million accounts were deleted each month in the first half of 2025.
“Too often the same meme or video pops up repeatedly – sometimes from accounts pretending to be the creator and other times from different spammy accounts,” the company wrote in the blog post.
“It dulls the experience for all and makes it harder for fresh voices to break through. We’re introducing stronger measures to reduce unoriginal content on Facebook and ultimately protect and elevate creators sharing original content.”
Dozens of users shared similar experiences on social media of their accounts being removed, despite being legitimate accounts, with some blaming AI systems for wrongly identifying their accounts as inauthentic.
“It seems that the ability to connect is being stripped away by an algorithm that lacks understanding,” one user wrote in a post to the Reddit forum MetaLawsuits.
“Our business is currently suffering now as we struggle to reach clients, business contacts and maintain relationships, while my son’s autism support network has been severed, leaving us feeling abandoned... The disconnection feels inhumane, unfair, and utterly heartbreaking.”
Referred to as the “Meta ban wave”, the mass deletions also appear to have impacted people on Instagram, which is also owned by Meta.
The Independent has reached out to the company for further comment about legitimate accounts being deleted.
Any user whose account has been deleted will receive an email informing them of the action.
Facebook users can appeal any account suspension within 180 days, according to the company’s support pages, after which time the profile will be permanently deleted.
The large-scale removal comes as other tech companies take steps to clean up their own platforms.
In 2023, Google announced that it would delete all inactive Gmail, Photos and Drive accounts in a move that continues to impact millions of users.
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously proposed even more extreme purges of Facebook in an effort to boost engagement.
In 2022, he reportedly sent an internal email that laid out a plan to delete the friends of all Facebook users.
“One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s graphs [connections] and having them start again,” he wrote to company executives, who pushed back on the idea.
Comedian Eric Idle says performers ‘ought to protect ourselves’ from AI fakes
Smartphones could help detect earthquakes and send early warnings, study finds
‘UK’s most powerful supercomputer’ launches in £1 billion AI drive
Microsoft wants to use human poop to lower its vast carbon footprint
