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Facebook blocks dozens of Russia-linked accounts ahead of US midterms
On the eve of midterm voting, Facebook Inc. said it blocked 30 accounts and 80 Instagram accounts for what the company said was “inauthentic behavior.”
The removal of the accounts came after U.S. law enforcement contacted Facebook on Sunday evening regarding suspicious activity on the platform that agents believed was the work of foreign bad actors. Moreover, on Tuesday, Facebook added that the accounts appear to be linked to the Internet Research Agency, Russia’s infamous troll farm.
“We immediately blocked these accounts and are now investigating them in more detail,” Facebook said in a blog post Monday. “Almost all the Facebook Pages associated with these accounts appear to be in the French or Russian languages, while the Instagram accounts seem to have mostly been in English — some were focused on celebrities, others political debate.”
Facebook added that usually such news wouldn’t be made public until a more thorough investigation was undertaken, but given the timing, Facebook wanted to let people know it was working on weeding out such bad actors. At the moment, according to the blog post, Facebook isn’t sure whom exactly the bad actors are.
It seems Facebook is taking no risks this time, given the criticism it faced after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which saw the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency using the platform to disseminate content related to politics and multiple divisive issues inside the U.S.
Facebook wasn’t alone, of course, with Twitter Inc. and Google LLC’s YouTube also found to have been used by bad actors to sway American voters. It just seems that Facebook was the go-to platform. Reports said Russia spent at least $100,000 on Facebook ads on issues surrounding political candidates, immigration, gun rights and LGBT rights.
In a joint statement released on Monday by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI, the public was warned that social media could be under attack from outside influences. “Americans should be aware that foreign actors, and Russia in particular, continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord,” the authorities said.
Image: Ksayer1/Flickr
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