Facebook removes 82 fake pages, groups and accounts tied to Iran

1 million US and British followers were victims of disinformation activity
Washington: Facebook Inc said on Friday it had deleted accounts originating in Iran that attracted more than 1 million US and British followers, its latest effort to combat disinformation activity on its platform.
Social media companies are struggling to stop attempts by people inside and outside the United States to spread false information on their platforms with goals ranging from destabilising elections by stoking hardline positions to supporting propaganda campaigns.

The fake Facebook accounts originating in Iran mostly targeted American liberals, according to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, a think-tank that works with Facebook to study propaganda online.
Facebook said it removed 82 pages, groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that represented themselves as being American or British citizens, then posted on “politically charged” topics such as race relations, opposition to US
President Donald Trump and immigration, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post.

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