UNMASKED

Facebook Pulls Thousands of Fake Accounts From Russia and Iran

Says pages all tried to mislead users about “who they were and what they were doing.”.

Facebook has pulled thousands of fake accounts linked to Russia and Iran that the company found engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” In a blog post from Nathaniel Gleicher, the company’s Cybersecurity chief, he says the 2,632 pulled pages weren’t necessarily linked, but were all involved in creating networks of accounts to mislead Facebook and Instagram users about “who they were and what they were doing.” The company said it removed 513 pages and groups tied to to Iran that impersonated real political groups and media organizations in other countries. It also removed 1,907 pages linked to Russia. Most of those pages were pulled for posting spam content, but some posted about Ukrainian news. Just over 200 pages were removed that originated in Macedonia and Kosovo, some of which attempted to represent political communities in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Gleicher shared some of the content posted by the banned pages and said: “We have shared information about our investigation with relevant law enforcement and policymakers.”

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