According to a statement from Facebook, the company identified suspicious behavior on its platform that was linked to an Iranian influence campaign. So, in total, the social network's security team removed a combination of 82 pages, groups and accounts disguised as US citizens and organizations and some cases from the UK.
Facebook prohibits "coordinated inauthentic behavior" on its platform, so given the proximity of such behavior to the US election, the company banned all accounts the network discovered.
In August, news of the existence of an Iranian influence campaign designed to sow division and heighten tensions in the United States first surfaced in the media. Google even found evidence of this operation on YouTube.
"Despite attempts to hide their true identities, a manual review of these accounts linked their activity to Iran. We also identified some overlaps with the Iranian accounts and pages removed in August," writes Nathaniel Gleicher, director of cybersecurity policy at the company. "However, it is still early days and while we have not found ties to the Iranian government, we cannot say for sure who is responsible."
Mark Zuckerberg's social network says it removed 30 pages, 33 Facebook accounts and three Facebook groups, and found 16 new Instagram accounts. These accounts and pages spent less than $100 on advertising and only hosted or co-hosted a total of seven events. Either way, about 1 million people followed at least one of the pages, and approximately 25 people joined at least one of the groups. Already, on Instagram, about 28 thousand people followed at least one of the accounts. The oldest account was created in 2016, but they were activated in 2016.
Facebook, to inhibit this type of action, has set up a globally focused location at its headquarters, and in Menlo Park, California, all of this is aimed at combating disinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
"This is going to be a constant arms race," Katie Harbath, Facebook's director of global policy and government engagement, told The Verge in an interview earlier this month. "This is our new normal. Bad actors are going to get more sophisticated in what they're doing, and we're going to have to get more sophisticated trying to catch them."
Source: The Verge
