Facebook Policing Foreign Misinformation Users

784
SHARE

Delete, delete, delete. Facebook deleted 32 accounts last month. On Tuesday, the company said it had deleted 652 accounts, groups and pages owned by Russian and Iranian operatives.

Facebook’s Actions

Last year, Facebook acknowledged that Russian operatives used its platform in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Since then, it has increased its monitoring activity and deleted fake news pages and political content from foreigners.

Last month’s deletions concerned foreign propaganda about the midterms. This month’s activity focused on foreign policy and the Middle East.

Facebook is not alone in worrying how foreign governments are using its platform. Twitter recently announced that it had suspended 248 Iranian accounts seeking to influence Americans. On Monday, Microsoft revealed a new effort by Russian operatives to impersonate conservative American websites.

Facebook also reported that it has informed both the U.S. and UK governments.

On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company can’t answer for foreign motives. He doesn’t know why Russian and Iranian operatives are engaging in this activity. However, he did warn that the attempts of nation states to abuse the platform would continue.