So far this year, Facebook has shut down 5.4 billion fake accounts, but millions more users.
5% of the monthly user base is made up of fake accounts, the company said, despite moves Facebook has made to "catch" fake profiles at sign-up.
In a call with reporters, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the large number of fake accounts removed as a sign of how seriously the company is taking this issue and called on other platforms to make similar disclosures.
"Just because our numbers are high doesn't mean there's harmful content. It just means we're working harder to identify that content," he said Wednesday.
The number of fake accounts disabled by the company peaked earlier this year, when Facebook said it closed more than 2 billion between January and March. It removed relatively fewer fake accounts in the following three months — 1.5 billion — which Facebook attributes to improvements in blocking new impersonations.
But the number is finally rising again: Facebook's latest report shows that it eliminated 1.7 billion fake accounts from July to September.
The announcement was made in a new Facebook report, which for the first time also includes information about Instagram.
Between April and September, according to Instagram data , Facebook removed about 3 million pieces of content that violated its policies against drug sales. The company took action against another 95,000 pieces of Instagram content related to gun sales .
The data focused on Instagram also reports on the company's efforts to combat child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and terrorist propaganda.
During a call with reporters, Zuckerberg noted that Facebook's systems are used extensively by Instagram to detect harmful content.
Finally, earlier this year, Facebook activated its hate speech algorithms to automatically begin removing content they deem to violate the company's policies.
