Facebook Removes 559 Pages, 251 Accounts Over 'Inauthentic Behavior' - Statement

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2018) Facebook is removing 559 Pages and 251 accounts that have engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior, the company said in a press release on Thursday.

"Today, we're removing 559 Pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior," the release said.

Many of the pages and accounts used fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same Names to post large amounts of content across a network of groups and pages to drive traffic to their websites, the release said.

Other pages and accounts were just ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking they were forums for actual political debate, the release said.

Facebook said the "bulk" of the inauthentic activity seen on the social media website is spam that is usually motivated by money, not politics.

Facebook came under fire for allowing the placement of political campaign ads allegedly linked to Russian entities during the 2016 election.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected allegations of election meddling, characterizing them as attempts by US politicians and media to fuel Russophobic hysteria.