Facebook takes down phony accounts from the UK and Romania

Facebook is punishing phony accounts from the UK and Romania.

The social media stated Thursday it took down 137 Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups from the UK that misrepresented their identities. Posing as reactionary and anti-far-right activists, these accounts were utilized to spread out hate speech and dissentious discuss both sides of the political dispute by publishing about hot-button concerns such as migration, faith and politics. 

About 175,000 accounts followed several of the phony UK pages. Roughly 4,500 accounts followed several of the phony Instagram accounts. Some of the eliminated pages consisted of “Anti far right extremists,” “atheist research centre” and “halel speech.” 

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Research Forensic Lab, which studied the network of phony UK accounts, discovered that the accounts “seemed designed to amplify pro-Islam and anti-extremist messaging, including by engaging with anti-Islam commentators.”

The UK accounts are amongst numerous phony accounts that Facebook has actually taken down, consisting of some from Iran, Russia, and the United States following criticism after the 2016 United States governmental election. The social media has actually been under fire for not acting rapidly enough to avoid Russian giants from spreading out false information. The eliminations mark the very first time that Facebook has stated it took down a network of phony accounts connected to the UK.

“We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Facebook’s Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher stated in a post. 

The social media likewise revealed Thursday that it took down 31 phony Facebook pages, groups and accounts from Romania that primarily published about regional news and political concerns.