Facebook removes 5,381 malicious accounts, groups and pages: Report
Manjil Das, INN/Chennai
Twitter-@SGiggle29 @Infodeaofficial
According to a report by IANS, Facebook has suspended 5,381 fraudulent accounts, groups, and pages from its main network and Instagram. Eight networks from seven countries have been removed from the social networking platform. The vast bulk of these ads were directed at citizens of their own countries.
In a statement, Facebook said, “We discovered this activity as part of our internal investigation into potential coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the region.”
In the month of June, about 2,784 Facebook accounts, 206 Instagram profiles, 2,249 Pages, and 142 Groups were terminated, according to the stated source. Facebook has blocked 675 Facebook accounts, 16 Pages, and 10 Instagram accounts in Iraq and Iran that were purportedly targeting Iraqi consumers and were tied to Al-Maaref Radio in Iraq and Alborz Analysis and Development, a Tehran-based IT firm.
Facebook erased 1,621 Facebook accounts, 1,795 Pages, 75 Groups, and 93 Instagram accounts in Mexico that were linked to people in the state of Campeche. It featured employees of Worgcorp, a political strategy and public relations organisation based in Mexico.
“As part of our internal investigation into potentially coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the region, we discovered this activity and took it down ahead of the Mexican elections,” Facebook said.
“We remove both inauthentic and authentic accounts, Pages, and Groups directly involved in this activity when we find domestic, non-government campaigns that include groups of accounts and Pages seeking to mislead people about who they are and what they are doing while relying on fake accounts,” Facebook added.
