In a further crack down on hate speech and objectionable content, another 82 pages and accounts have been taken down by Facebook. All of these pages and accounts allegedly had ties with Iran and the social media platform found that the pages and accounts were being used for posting and spreading politically charged memes.
At least one of the accounts was followed by a huge number of followers and according to Facebook - the largest social media platform in the world, the following was at least 1 million and the accounts were live on both Facebook and Instagram. The accounts that have nee taken down used to for Facebook groups and engaged in conducting Facebook events which were similar to what the activities that were engaged in by the other Facebook accounts that have been taken down earlier by Facebook and were determined to be fake accounts.
According to information the social media platform, it was about a week ago that Facebook first identified and detected the activities of this set of accounts and pages that have been most recently taken down by it. The company said that the suspected accounts made use of less than $100 on two advertisements across the two platforms. The company said that the first ad ran in January 2016 and the second ran in January 2018.
Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said on a call with media, the accounts had been most active during the last one year or so even though some of the accounts and users were live and active as early as 2016.
This move by Facebook is the latest in its series of efforts to take action against continued misinformation which is being spread on the platform. The company had on earlier occasions identified users in Russia and Iran to be the sources of misinformation that potentially was state sponsored.
The removal and blocking of more than 600 suspected spurious accounts Russia and Iran, which reportedly was used to spread misinformation and engaged in so called "inauthentic behavior", by Facebook along with other social media platform of Twitter and Google was announced by them in August.
Gleicher said that Facebook also managed to identify some degree of overlap and links between those accounts that had been blocked and taken down in August and those accounts that were taken down most recently.
Following the efforts by foreign parties to instigate social debates during the 2016 US Presidential elections and the threat of such repeat incidents in the midterm elections in the US November, the efforts of detection and take-down rates have been increased by Facebook.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
At least one of the accounts was followed by a huge number of followers and according to Facebook - the largest social media platform in the world, the following was at least 1 million and the accounts were live on both Facebook and Instagram. The accounts that have nee taken down used to for Facebook groups and engaged in conducting Facebook events which were similar to what the activities that were engaged in by the other Facebook accounts that have been taken down earlier by Facebook and were determined to be fake accounts.
According to information the social media platform, it was about a week ago that Facebook first identified and detected the activities of this set of accounts and pages that have been most recently taken down by it. The company said that the suspected accounts made use of less than $100 on two advertisements across the two platforms. The company said that the first ad ran in January 2016 and the second ran in January 2018.
Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said on a call with media, the accounts had been most active during the last one year or so even though some of the accounts and users were live and active as early as 2016.
This move by Facebook is the latest in its series of efforts to take action against continued misinformation which is being spread on the platform. The company had on earlier occasions identified users in Russia and Iran to be the sources of misinformation that potentially was state sponsored.
The removal and blocking of more than 600 suspected spurious accounts Russia and Iran, which reportedly was used to spread misinformation and engaged in so called "inauthentic behavior", by Facebook along with other social media platform of Twitter and Google was announced by them in August.
Gleicher said that Facebook also managed to identify some degree of overlap and links between those accounts that had been blocked and taken down in August and those accounts that were taken down most recently.
Following the efforts by foreign parties to instigate social debates during the 2016 US Presidential elections and the threat of such repeat incidents in the midterm elections in the US November, the efforts of detection and take-down rates have been increased by Facebook.
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
