The Odnoklassniki social network shared its 2023 results, focusing on safeguarding users from unwanted content and digital threats. OK’s team analyzed the patterns scammers use when delivering spam and other material that violates the platform’s rules, shedding light on trends that matter to users in North America and beyond.
The most persistent scam topic involved lottery wins. Users were prompted to join a draw or claim cash prizes, followed by requests to pay a “tax,” a “service fee,” or similar charges. The underlying aim was to extract money from unsuspecting members through a sequence of payments and false promises.
Secondly, donation campaigns purportedly to aid animals or help sick or injured people ranked high among scams. Online gambling schemes also appeared prominently, leveraging fake urgency and bonus offers to lure victims into sharing personal data or transferring funds.
Fraudsters repeatedly used pseudo-Nigerian-style letters that distort trust by implying fines or inheritance payments, engaged in SMS-based fraud, abused verification codes, and offered items supposedly photographed by models to be sold via third-party messaging platforms. In some cases, the tactic involved moving conversations to unrelated messaging services to broaden reach.
OK reports notable progress in protecting users throughout the year. The volume of spam encountered by a typical user remained extremely low, with end-of-year figures showing less than 0.5% of the daily audience affected by such activity. That mark represents the lowest share in five years and signals a sustained reduction in disruptive content for the network’s users.
Beyond spam, OK defines unwanted actions and materials as any content or behavior that pressures users toward low-value goods or services, or that enables fraud and illicit profit. The platform uses a blend of automatic detection and human oversight to curb these risks, continually refining its approach to keep the community safer and more trustworthy.
During the year, OK also logged and halted more than 9 million suspicious login attempts across its services. Approximately nine in ten of these potential breaches were caught and blocked automatically, underscoring the effectiveness of the platform’s real-time security measures. In addition, the service blocked suspicious users or limited their access in excess of 7 million times, demonstrating a proactive stance against repeated threats.
An official from the information security team stressed the goal of creating a comfortable, safe space for conversation on the platform. The ongoing effort includes deploying new technologies to detect and block unwanted content, spam, and accounts engaged in spamming activities. In 2023, the team reduced the number of spam links and continued refining its AI models to better identify suspicious material. As a result, user reports about harmful content declined by a substantial margin compared with the prior year.
Previously disclosed figures highlighted the success of Creator-related activities on OK during the year, illustrating how better moderation and content control can coexist with a vibrant creator ecosystem while maintaining user safety across the network.