Facebook removes hundreds of fake propaganda accounts

More than 650 Facebook pages and groups were said to have been identified as “misleading”, according to founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile Twitter said it suspended 284 accounts with apparent links to Iran. It comes a day after Microsoft said it had thwarted Russian cyber-attacks against US conservative groups.

In addition, Facebook removed an undisclosed number of pages linked to a Russian firm that has been accused of trying to influence opinions on social media in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential elections.The pages were found after cybersecurity firm FireEye contacted Facebook about suspicious activity.

“Based on FireEye’s tip, we started an investigation into ‘Liberty Front Press’ and identified additional accounts and Pages from their network,” Facebook said in a statement.

FireEye said the U.S.-focused activity ramped up last year, just months after Trump took office, with websites and social media accounts posting memes and articles, some of which were apparently copied from legitimate U.S. and Iranian news outlets.

In some cases, the domains for the fake websites like “US Journal” and “Liberty Free Press” were originally registered years before the 2016 election, in 2014 and 2013, but most remained inactive until last year, FireEye said.

Arabic-language, Middle East-focused websites appear to be part of the same campaign, the company added.

The technology companies variously said they linked the accounts to Iran based on user phone numbers, email addresses, website registration records and the timing of account activity matching Iranian business hours.

Some Twitter and Facebook accounts were designed to appear as if they were real people in the U.S., Britain and Canada, according to FireEye. The accounts used a combination of different hashtags to engage in U.S. culture, including “#lockhimup,” “#impeachtrump” and “notmypresident.”

Twitter, which called the effort “coordinated manipulation,” said it removed 284 accounts.

Facebook said on Tuesday that it also removed some accounts tied to “sources the US government has previously identified as Russian military intelligence services.”

Those accounts engaged in “inauthentic behavior” related to politics in Syria and Ukraine, Facebook said, while noting that the activity does not appear linked to the Iran campaign.

Facebook last month removed 32 pages and accounts tied to another misinformation campaign without describing its origins.

The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment after hours.