Fighting social spam requires manpower because spammers move quickly. At Facebook, the company's site-integrity team spends its days and nights scanning for spikes in what users report as spam, and other unusual activity, such as friend request rejections. Every day, Facebook says it blocks 200 million malicious actions, such as messages linking to malware.
About once a quarter, Facebook gets hit with a big attack—and it's all hands on deck until the spam is destroyed, say employees. Weeks like that turn into "a very intense battle," says Mr. Stein. A poster on his team's wall features a unicorn slaying a spam monster.
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