By Erika Icon

YNOT – Adult industry professionals who maintain fan pages on Facebook may have noticed a sudden decrease in the number of “likes” on their pages. There’s a reason for that: As part of a site overhaul, Facebook has begun deleting fake and “suspicious” accounts. The purge started at the end of August, but went into full force during the final week in September.

“A Like that doesn’t come from someone truly interested in connecting with a Page benefits no one,” the company explained. “When a Page and fan connect on Facebook, we want to ensure that connection involves a real person interested in hearing from a specific Page and engaging with that brand’s content.”

Business Insider compiled a list of the seven celebrity accounts with the most fake followers. Despite his death last three years ago, Michael Jackson’s Facebook page lost 36,751 fake fans last week. Justin Beiber lost 45,274, and Rihanna lost 49,49,861. Lady Gaga topped the list with a whopping 65,505 fake fans axed by the purge. By Sept. 27, Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker page had lost almost 200,000 fans, according to Facebook analytics site PageData.

How did Facebook determine which fans were fake? Some were detected by arcane internal systems designed to prevent Facebook “likes” from becoming commercial. Unlike Twitter, Facebook always has forbidden outside entities from offering to increase follower numbers for a fee. The prohibition hasn’t prevented the practice, though: Facebook occasionally finds pages inflating their statistics through malware, stealth links or other deceptive means.

The company was quick to point out that businesses and individuals who have earned their communities legitimately have nothing to fear: Real fans and followers won’t be deleted. A Facebook spokesperson said pages that follow the rules should experience only a one-percent drop in their numbers.

The purge actually will be beneficial to companies and individuals who use Facebook as a marketing tool. Although an inflated fan count may boost a page owner’s ego, marketing to ghosts is a waste of time.