In Q3 2024 alone, Meta removed 1.1 billion fake accounts from its platforms. Read that number again. One point one billion. That’s more than the entire population of Africa — gone in a single quarter. And that’s just the accounts they caught.

Welcome to the bot epidemic.

The Scale of the Problem

Fake accounts aren’t a minor inconvenience. They’re a structural failure baked into the foundations of how the modern internet was built. Social platforms were designed to grow fast — and they did. But in that race to accumulate users, identity verification was never part of the conversation.

The result is a sprawling ecosystem of bots, fake profiles and anonymous bad actors that has quietly poisoned how information flows online.

Think about what that actually means in practice. 72% of online abuse comes from anonymous accounts. Fake profiles are routinely used to manufacture consensus, push misinformation and manipulate public opinion at scale. Advertisers are collectively spending billions targeting audiences that don’t exist. Journalists are sourcing quotes and eyewitness accounts from profiles that were never real people to begin with.

And the platforms know. They’ve always known. Fake engagement inflates their metrics. It props up ad revenue. It makes user numbers look impressive when earnings season rolls around.

Authenticity was never their priority. Engagement was.

AI Is About to Make This Exponentially Worse

If 1.1 billion fake accounts sounds alarming, what’s coming next is something else entirely.

Artificial intelligence can now produce convincing articles, realistic images, deepfake video and fully scripted social media conversations — quickly, cheaply and at enormous scale. We’re moving towards a world where synthetic content becomes the norm rather than the exception, and the line between what’s real and what’s generated quietly disappears.

Fake accounts used to need human operators behind them. Now a single bad actor can run thousands of AI-powered personas, each one producing original content, engaging with real users and nudging narratives — without a single real person involved.

The window to get ahead of this is open. But it won’t stay open indefinitely.

Why the Big Platforms Won’t Fix This

At this point it’s fair to ask — why don’t Facebook, X or Instagram just verify their users?

The answer is straightforward, even if it’s uncomfortable. It’s not in their interest.

Social platforms are built around engagement. Their entire commercial model depends on maximising time spent on platform, and bots — ironically — are quite good at driving engagement. Fake likes, inflated comment sections and algorithmic amplification all serve the same purpose underneath it all.

More engagement means more advertising revenue. Verification would shrink user numbers, complicate the metrics they sell to advertisers and threaten the model their valuations are built on.

The big platforms aren’t going to solve the trust crisis. In many ways, they are the trust crisis.

Verification Is the Only Real Answer

The solution itself isn’t complicated. It just requires someone to actually build it.

The underlying principle already exists in other critical systems. Banks verify customers before allowing transactions. Governments verify identity before issuing documents. Professional bodies check credentials before granting licences.

The same logic belongs in the information ecosystem. If every person publishing content online is a verified human being, and every piece of content carries authenticated provenance data, the bot epidemic loses most of its power overnight. Bad actors lose their anonymity. Fake communities can’t be assembled from nothing. Misinformation becomes traceable back to its source.

Verification doesn’t just reduce harm. It creates trust. And in an information economy, trust is the thing everything else is built on.

The Credibility Layer the Internet Has Been Missing

This is what Media.com is here to do.

We’re building a verified media network where every contributor is authenticated using banking-grade identity technology, and every piece of content carries provenance data through C2PA Content Credential standards. Not as a feature. Not as a compliance exercise. As the foundation.

The internet scaled information successfully. What it never built was a system for credibility.

The 1.1 billion fake accounts removed in a single quarter aren’t the conclusion of this story. They’re an early warning. The bot epidemic is growing, AI is accelerating it, and the platforms with the most to lose have every reason to look the other way.

Someone needs to build the trust infrastructure the world is asking for.

We think it should exist. And we’re building it.

Media.com is a verified media network dedicated to rebuilding trust online. Join the waitlist at media.com.

Must it be this way? Where did we go wrong? How do we fix it?

These are the questions we ask as we roll out Media.com, frame by frame, feature by feature. Our fundamental thrust being that ignorance of a given technological force causes trepidation and the sense that the force controls us. We’re here to provide a better way than social media has provided so far — not only to connect with each other, tell stories and keep informed, but also to quench the thirst so many of us have for reliability, accountability and transparency in the content we consume.

We consider this to be a glaring void the internet’s many pioneers overlooked in their great race to connect billions of nodes to each other – real or not, identifiable or anonymous – as they sought eyeballs or at least potential eyeballs, at almost any cost.

Perhaps initial generations of social media failed in this regard. Disorder was the rule. Connection was the pitch. Engagement was the measure. Advertising revenue was the bottom line. Comprehension came later.

We the innocent consumers saw the shiny new thing and hopped in. We drove and drove until the thing broke down, in the middle of nowhere, with ominous clouds approaching. And here we are: anxious. Unable to fix the thing because, yes, it turns out selfies and untraceable incendiary comments don’t fix much. We’ve gone a little cybersick in the process, within a media metaverse that lacks the coherence to calm itself down.

We aim to learn from and repair the era that brought us here. We seek to rediscover optimism about how the internet and social media might enhance, but not dictate, our personal and business lives. Doing so requires full comprehension and discussion of social media’s effects and mechanics.

Simple. Coherent. Authentic. Trustworthy. Mature. Anxiety-free.

These are some of our guideposts. This is where a new way to think about “social media all grown up” begins — with intention.

Certainly a more mindful internet is possible, following in the tradition of a medium built to find improvements from within, as media and tech build atop each other, new version after new version. That’s our position — for the record. We can do this.

The first challenge: verification

Generations raised on smartphones and online networks seem to grasp these pitfalls more candidly than most. Internet ethnographer Katherine Dee describes the current era as shaped by “an internet-native sadism” where depression, nihilism and sleeping with one’s phone is a common experience for many under 40.

Indeed, millions now bear battle scars from a system that was perhaps never built to manage the forces of online exploitation. We often blame smartphones, but a smartphone is just hardware — a portal to the internet, wired by media in all its forms. We’re addicted to the content, not the device. A television is only as powerful as the shows and content it broadcasts; otherwise, it’s just an inert plastic box. A phone is the same.

In developing our vision for a next-generation social media platform, we prioritized verified identity. We examined how open systems can be exploited and concluded that anonymity — and the bots that feed on it — had to go.

We also implemented an age threshold (18) and built trust and safety into the foundation of our platform. Our Trust Center is at the core of this effort, ensuring oversight on issues such as: dangerous organizations, adult sexual abuse, hate speech, misinformation, copyright laws and high-risk users. See our Trust Center for more details.

Verification is our first step toward a trusted online universe. Many online seem to think anonymity is a fundamental reason to be online; we don’t question that this is attractive. Anonymity has its place, especially for those caught in oppressive societies and situations. But that’s not us. We are the first major social media community to validate each and every user. We understand the need for a safe anonymous space for some, but the other guys have that covered.

For individuals, a valid government-issued photo ID (a passport or driver’s license) is required. For a business profile, we verify an authorized officer before pursuing additional documentation under “Know Your Customer” and “Know Your Business” standards.

This means every piece of content on Media.com has a traceable source. We believe candid conversations and provocative content can coexist with this model. We believe internet commerce and social engagement online function better when humans — not bots — are in control. And we insist that a town square isn’t a town square if it’s full of cardboard cutouts with fake names pretending to be human. After all, isn’t that what computer games are for?

This is real social media, built on trust, safety, opportunity and imagination. A space where fragmented apps, paranoia about online interactions, and distrust dissolve into a sustainable joie de internet — a love of the internet. Yes, we believe it’s possible.

A higher-quality engagement

Susannah Page-Katz, our lead on content moderation, previously served as director of trust and safety at Kickstarter, where she drafted its AI guardrail policy. Crucially, this policy didn’t take a black-and-white stance on AI content creation; instead, it acknowledged AI as a media tool while ensuring creators remained transparent about its use.

The idea was to exercise control over a whiz-bang technology, while implementing a flexible approach that respects a creator’s inherent freedom to create as well as protect work from those that would steal or plagiarize. To control bot software, not bow to its supremacy. The internet is full of short cuts, safe to say — to fame, knowledge, art, journalism, wealth, etc. Page-Katz has been working on many forthcoming tools that address fact-checking and identity.

The trend is moving in this direction. A 2023 YouGov survey of 1,000 adults, cited by Bloomberg Law, found that 62% of respondents believe platforms should require real names and identity verification. Europe leads with tough policies Media.com follows, and several American states have enacted laws to “prohibit impersonation for purposes of harassment, intimidation, threat or deception to facilitate contact.”

Freedom of speech being a respected pillar within our approach, within reason. Does an anonymous burner-bot have the right to say whatever it wants? Not really. Not in our space. We’d have to point out that such entities don’t really “speak” at all. They mimic speech; they fake it. And that is not a protected right, last time we checked.

“These laws aren’t an attempt to limit what anyone can say,” wrote Bruce Heiman, a partner at the law firm K&L Gates, for Bloomberg. “They aim to prevent false identification.”

Page-Katz echoed Heiman. “We’re verifying the individuals behind the account, not the information they might share,” she said. “That’s the safety piece.”

Christy Grace Provines, our global head of brand, encourages new visitors to explore the Trust Center to gain a comprehensive understanding of our approach. Having led high-profile campaigns like Tinder’s 2023 global rebrand, Provines emphasizes that every feature we introduce is designed to “do less harm” and “be less toxic.”

“Our Trust Center outlines our reason to exist,” she said. “And verification matters because there are no bots on the platform. That’s our aim.”

We’re building a platform where engagement is higher quality, with fewer trolls, less spam and reduced toxicity. Hate speech, doxing and threats will trigger oversight. The goal is to create a digital space where accountability, trust and meaningful interactions thrive.

Bit by bit, we’re on a mission to redefine social media. We’ve identified the void and have set about filling it. We’ve established a safe online space and we invite you to be a part of it. We hope you’ll join us for our mission.

James Mawhinney, founder and CEO of Media.com, began his career in digital marketing at the age of just 17.

After travelling to the United States to learn digital marketing, he returned to Perth and co‑founded one of Australia’s first such firms alongside his father.

He later studied law and investment finance and established a personal investment group. A regulatory investigation in 2020 triggered litigation that “thankfully is getting close to concluding.”

From that experience arose his conviction that the digital world lacked a trusted, transparent space for real people – a conviction that became the foundation for Media.com.

“I experienced firsthand the harm that can be caused by anonymous profiles and fake profiles,” said James Mawhinney, Founder & CEO, Media.com.

Verified Identity

Mawhinney draws a comparison between financial systems and social media: just as banks require identity verification to protect money, social networks should require it to protect information.

“When we publish content online, we’re publishing a form of currency,” he said. “Others are consuming it or they’re using it … being transmitted to others.” Without verification, “that content’s coming from unverified and therefore untraceable sources.”

On Media.com, every user – whether individual or business – undergoes identity verification using the same Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) procedures used by banks. The checks typically take 90 seconds to two minutes and cover over 200 countries.

With verified identities, users are more likely to “think twice about what you’re going to say,” leading to “a far more … not just safer environment, but more enjoyable environment.”

Online Harms

Mawhinney argues that many of the problems plaguing current social networks stem from anonymity – trolling, cyberbullying, misinformation, disinformation and untraceable interactions.

He recounted his own experience of having a fake account created in his name, posting harmful content, and escaping accountability because no one knew who the perpetrator really was. On Media.com, where identity is confirmed, there is “someone to hold accountable.”

As a result, the platform could reduce the incidence of harmful behaviour, promote responsible posting, and create a community grounded in real identities.

Growth Path

Development of Media.com began in early 2023. The company has built a waiting list of users from more than 130 countries – including unexpected registrations from remote regions such as Antarctica.

The desktop version of the network is already operational. In the coming weeks, Media.com will submit its mobile application to app stores. Mawhinney expects a strong uptake early next year: the platform will support a familiar social‑media experience, including a feed, long‑form and short‑form content, and – by first quarter next year – a video‑shorts feature.

The key difference, he says, is identity verification.

Users will know “you can trust at least the identity of the people that you’re engaging with.” In an era increasingly concerned with AI‑generated content, this clarity will make it easier to distinguish between human and machine outputs.

Regulatory Signals

Mawhinney believes Media.com’s verification-first model could guide future regulation.

He points to legislation such as the European Union’s Online Safety Act, which introduced optional profile verification. Over time, he expects that social networks may be required to know who their users are, much like banks must know their account holders.

In that envisioned future, platforms built with verification from the start – like Media.com – would be better positioned to comply.

“As of 24 hours ago, Australia’s implemented the under‑16 social media ban,” said Mawhinney. “We believe that what we’re building is a next‑generation network where having every profile verified since inception is going to solve a lot of the online harms associated with misinformation, disinformation, trolling.”

As an Event Sponsor of this important industry event, Media.com will play a visible role throughout the two-day program, where leaders from Australia’s banking sector, regulators, policymakers, and technology innovators gather to address the future of banking in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Media.com will host an interactive exhibition booth where attendees can experience live product demonstrations, learn about how Media.com protects consumers, and why Media.com is the trusted alternative for social networking. With an interest in fueling critical conversations and connections among attendees, the company is also hosting the conference coffee stand.

According to the Australian government’s 2024 National Anti-Scam Centre Report, “the most reported contact method leading to financial loss was social media,” and more Australians lost money via social media in 2024 than the year prior. These social platforms – where fake identities, bots, and anonymity reign – have become the primary vehicle for scammers targeting consumers and banks alike. However, Media.com offers a credible, secure social networking experience where every user is verified before they can join the network, create content or connect with others. This simple, powerful safeguard drastically reduces the risk of scams, impersonation, and misinformation – protecting users all while stabilizing the financial ecosystem.

“Becoming a sponsor of the ABA’s flagship event was a strategic priority for us given the challenges the banking industry is facing from the misuse of social networks to target consumers,” said James Mawhinney, Media.com founder and CEO. “The ABA and its members have shown great leadership by prioritizing consumer protection, a mission that closely mirrors that of Media.com’s which aims to restore public trust in online information and support the banking sector’s immediate need for solutions that protect consumers from harm. This is why we’ve integrated the same best in class user verification technology on our network that banks use worldwide to verify customers, as we know the solution begins with accountability and transparency – two of the principles embedded in Media.com’s DNA.”

By supporting the adoption of a verified network like Media.com, banks can help shield consumers from the social media-driven scams eroding trust and impacting financial stability. Banks can:

• Create verified profiles on Media.com to provide a safer digital touchpoint for customers
• Promote Media.com to their customers as a safe and trusted alternative to traditional social networks
• Lead a movement toward digital accountability and trust in Australia’s online banking landscape

“A stable, trusted banking environment is critical for the future of Australia,” said Mawhinney. “We’ve built the infrastructure for safer online engagement—one that not only protects consumers, but also helps reduce fraud, improve trust, and ultimately protect their bottom line. This isn’t about competing with social media—it’s about replacing what’s broken with something better.”

This year’s ABA conference focuses on the difficulties and opportunities ahead for financial services, including consumer protection, regulatory shifts, sustainable finance, risk management, and the sector’s broader digital transformation. Media.com’s participation underscores its commitment to helping industries like banking embrace technologies that uphold user trust and safeguard information. Knowing how important consumer protection is, Media.com’s commitment to trust, transparency, and innovation aligns with the values that underpin Australia’s banking sector.

Launched in Beta in late 2024, Media.com is transforming social networking by verifying every user, ensuring all content is traceable to its source. This approach fosters a safer, more accountable digital space—free from fake profiles, bots, and misinformation—designed for people and businesses seeking meaningful, credible engagement online.   With attendance from banking CEOs, regulators, and global thought leaders, the ABA conference offers Media.com a unique opportunity to demonstrate its impact, engage with decision-makers, and align with the collective vision for a stronger, more trusted digital future.