According to a recent TechCrunch report, social network Facebook has confirmed that it has commenced its August-announced massive deletion process; with a crack down on all fake users, accounts, and likes.

Facebook had revealed in a last-month announcement that it intends sweeping its site of all kinds of fake activities, so that phony `likes' could be deleted; in an attempt to ensure that the social network's users were communicating with real people and businesses.

Despite the fact that Facebook's announcement of the massive deletion process implied that there would be less spam and phishing on the social network, the company has stated that the move will result in the removal of barely 1 percent of `likes' on most pages.

The social network also added that the impact of the eradication will apparently be minimal if users fail to abide by the rules, and continue with the contentious practice of buying fans from shady sources, like the SocialMediaCorp site.

Nonetheless, with the flush out of all the dubious affirmations having been started by Facebook on Wednesday, tens of thousands of fans have already been quietly dropped from Facebook Pages.

Going by the statistics shared on Facebook metrics site PageData, nearly 96,000 fans of Zynga's Texas HoldEm Poker were thrown out over the course of the day; while Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Michael Jackson lost 32,000, 22,000, and 17,500 fans respectively.