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Business

Facebook shuts down thousands of fake Pages, accounts

San Francisco, March 27

Facebook has removed 2,632 Pages, Groups and accounts that were engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour from Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo on its platform, as well as on Instagram.

The social media platform said it did not find any links between these sets of activities but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing.

"We removed 1,907 Facebook Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in spam -- and a small portion of these engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour -- linked to Russia," Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook, said in a blog post late Tuesday.

The individuals behind these activities used fake accounts primarily to operate Groups and Pages posting spam content.

"A small number of these posted content related to Ukrainian news and politics, including the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine; local and regional politics; Ukrainian patriotism; refugee issues; Ukrainian military; the situation in Crimea; and corruption," Facebook elaborated.

The company pulled 513 Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour as part of multiple networks tied to Iran.

"Finally, we removed 212 Facebook Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that originated in Macedonia and Kosovo," the company added.