Facebook Inc. said early Thursday that it had removed pages and accounts linked to what it said were two Russia-based misinformation campaigns, the latest step in the social-media company’s effort to prevent misuse of its service.

The company removed about 500 pages and accounts on both Facebook and its Instagram photo service, Facebook cybersecurity policy head Nathaniel Gleicher said in a statement.

Facebook...</s>Facebook Inc said on Thursday it had removed hundreds of Russia-initiated pages, accounts and groups that it judged to be involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Facebook's head of cyber-security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post it had unearthed two separate operations which originated in Russia, with one active in multiple countries across eastern Europe and the other specific to Ukraine.

The company said it had taken down about 364 Facebook Pages and accounts run by the first Russian network and operating in Baltic Sea states, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern Europe, adding that these pages were linked to employees of Russian news agency Sputnik.

The company also said that based on a tip from US law enforcement, it had separately removed 107 Facebook pages, group and accounts and 41 Instagram accounts that originated in Russia and operated in Ukraine.

"We didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," the company said.

Facebook has been under fire for the last two years for its self-admitted sluggishness in developing tools to combat extremist content and propaganda operations.

Facebook and Twitter Inc took down millions of posts and shuttered accounts linked to influence operations by Russia, Iran and other actors in the run-up to US mid-term elections in November.</s>Facebook uncovered and cut ties with hundreds of fake accounts tied to Russia that were engaging in inauthentic behavior, the tech giant announced Thursday.

The latest purge of fake accounts spreading disinformation comes as the Menlo Park, Calif. company has battled the perception that it's not acting fast enough more than two years after Moscow harnessed Facebook to sow discord and boost the candidacy of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In October 2017, the tech giant admitted that up to 126 million Americans saw Russian-backed content over a two-year period. In December 2018, two major reports revealed a multifaceted, highly coordinated effort to divide the country and target the African-American community in the run-up to the presidential election.

"We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people," said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, in a blog post. "We’re taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they post."

The tech behemoth removed 364 Facebook Pages and accounts that originated in Russian but operated across the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Central and Eastern Europe, for their coordinated inauthentic behavior. Facebook said the pages and accounts were linked to employees of Sputnik, a Moscow-based news agency considered by many to be a propaganda outlet, and that the posts were often about topics such as "anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption."

The pages had a total of about 790,000 followers, and about $135,000 was spent on ads on Facebook, paid for in U.S. dollars, euros and rubles. Beyond that, the pages hosted 190 events, dating back to August 2015 and up to this month, although Facebook said it could not confirm whether any of these offline events actually took place.

In a separate but related action, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company said it removed another set of Russia-backed Facebook and Instagram accounts that engaged in inauthentic behavior in Ukraine, some of which overlapped with Russia-based activity before the U.S. midterm elections. This group of pages had about 180,000 followers and more than 55,000 accounts followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.

The company shared its findings with U.S. law enforcement, the U.S. Congress and other technology companies.

"Our security efforts are ongoing to help us stay a step ahead and uncover this kind of abuse, particularly in light of important political moments and elections in Europe this year," Gleicher said.

In April, Facebook removed 200 other accounts and pages linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm that activated bots to spread misinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.</s>More fake accounts linked to Russia have been kicked off the world's largest social network.

Facebook said Thursday it removed 364 pages and accounts that originated in Russia for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior." Roughly 790,000 Facebook users followed one or more of these pages, which were part of a network operating in the Baltic region, Caucasus region, central and eastern Europe and central Asia, according to Facebook.

The fake accounts branded themselves as independent news pages or interest pages on topics ranging from travel to politicians, according to a Facebook blog post. The pages and accounts were also linked to employees of Sputnik, a news agency based in Moscow, Facebook said. They regularly posted topics such as anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements and anti-corruption.

This is Facebook's latest purge of what it calls inauthentic behavior. With more than 2 billion users worldwide, Facebook has been under pressure to protect the integrity of elections. In 2017, the social network revealed it found evidence that Russians used Facebook to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election and to create discord among Americans. Since then, Facebook has removed hundreds of fake accounts and pages.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who came under scrutiny over the social network's scandals, said in August that Facebook had shifted "from reactive to proactive detection" to strengthen its security and to tackle its fake news problem.

In this latest purge, the company also removed 107 Facebook pages, groups and accounts, as well as 41 Instagram accounts, that were tied to a second network originating in Russia and operating in Ukraine. Roughly 180,000 Facebook users and 55,000 Instagram users followed these fake accounts. Facebook said it identified some technical overlap with similar Russia-based behavior during the 2018 US midterm elections.

Cambridge Analytica: Everything you need to know about Facebook's data mining scandal.

Infowars and Silicon Valley: Everything you need to know about the tech industry's free speech debate.</s>LONDON, UK — Facebook said Thursday it removed hundreds of Russia-linked pages, groups and accounts that it says were part of two big disinformation operations targeting users outside the U.S.

The social media company said its latest effort to fight misinformation came after it found two networks "that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior" on Facebook and its Instagram service.

Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post that one network operated in countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The other focused on Ukraine.

"We didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," Gleicher said.

U.S. tech companies have stepped up their work against disinformation campaigns, aiming to stymie online troublemakers' efforts to divide voters and discredit democracy. Facebook's purge is part of countermeasures to prevent abuses like those used by Russian groups two years ago to sway public opinion ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Though much of the attention has been on Russian-linked campaigns in the U.S., Facebook has identified and blocked such tactics around the world. The Menlo Park, California, company has been disclosing such purges regularly in recent months, as its systems get better at detecting and removing malicious accounts. But those behind the campaigns are sharpening their attacks, too.

According to Facebook, the people running the accounts represented themselves as independent news sources and posted on topics like anti-NATO sentiment and protest movements.

Gleicher said one network of 364 pages and accounts was linked to employees of Sputnik, a Russian state-run English-language news site. About 790,000 accounts followed one or more of the network's pages. The operation spent about $135,000 over six years for Facebook advertisements, which it paid for in euros, rubles and dollars. The most recent ad ran in January.

"The decision is clearly political. This is tantamount to censorship," Sputnik said in a statement to The Associated Press, adding that Facebook blocked the accounts of seven of its bureaus in former Soviet republics. "Sputnik editorial offices deal with news and they do it well. If this blocking is Facebook's only reaction to the quality of the media's work, then we have no questions, everything is clear here. But there is still hope that common sense will prevail."

Acting on a tip from U.S. law enforcement, Facebook shut another 148 pages, groups and accounts, including 41 on Instagram, that were part of a second network that spent $25,000 on ads in 2018, paid for in rubles. Gleicher said Facebook "identified some technical overlap with Russia-based activity we saw prior to the U.S. midterm elections, including behavior that shared characteristics with previous Internet Research Agency activity."

The Internet Research Agency is a Russian troll farm indicted by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller for its actions aimed at influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The disclosure is the latest in a series of fake account purges in recent months. Facebook has been stepping up its scrutiny after being criticized for its slow response to foreign attempts to influence the 2016 vote.

In another measure aimed at increasing transparency, Facebook last year started requiring all political ads taken out in the U.S., Britain and Brazil to disclose who paid for them.

Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.</s>Facebook says it has removed more than 500 Pages and accounts that originated in Russia, some of which it claims are linked to Moscow-based news agency Sputnik.

The social network said it discovered two separate operations engaging in what it called “inauthentic behaviour” across Facebook and Instagram, involving attempts to “manipulate people”.

The accounts were removed because they had attempted to “mislead others about who they were and what they were doing”, Facebook said.

The first operation involved 289 Facebook Pages and 75 accounts representing themselves primarily as independent news or general interest pages and operating across a range of countries in central Asia and central and eastern Europe.

Facebook said it found the accounts were linked to Sputnik employees, some of which frequently posted about “anti-Nato sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption”.

The second operation – based on a tip-off from US law enforcement – included 107 Facebook Pages, Groups and accounts, as well as 41 Instagram accounts and focused on Ukraine.

“The individuals behind these accounts primarily represented themselves as Ukrainian, and they operated a variety of fake accounts while sharing local Ukrainian news stories on a variety of topics, such as weather, protests, Nato, and health conditions at schools,” Facebook said.

“We identified some technical overlap with Russia-based activity we saw prior to the US midterm elections, including behaviour that shared characteristics with previous Internet Research Agency (IRA) activity.”

The social network’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said: “We’re taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they post.

“In these cases, the people behind this activity co-ordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.”

“While we are making progress rooting out this abuse, as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well funded.

“We constantly have to improve to stay ahead. That means building better technology, hiring more people and working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies. Their collaboration was critical to these investigations.”

Previous investigations in the US found Facebook had been used by Russia to post content that aimed to influence and interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.

Last year, the social network removed more than 100 accounts on the eve of the US midterm elections in November it believed were linked to “foreign entities”, having also removed more than 80 Pages, Groups and accounts in October it claimed were linked to Iran.</s>Social networking giant Facebook on Thursday killed over 300 fake Pages and accounts linked to Russia that it said was “engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, almost two years after the US presidential election. The social media giant removed 364 Pages and accounts as part of a network that originated in Russia and operated in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern European countries.

“The two operations we found originated in Russia, and one was active in a variety of countries while the other was specific to Ukraine. “Despite their misrepresentations of their identities, we found that these Pages and accounts were linked to employees of Sputnik, a news agency based in Moscow, and that some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy, Facebook, wrote in a blog post.

About $135,000 were spent in ads, and paid for in euros, roubles and dollars, over a time span from October 2013 to now. Around 790,000 accounts followed one or more of these Pages (now taken down) on the social media platform.

 “We’re taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they post. In these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves,” Gleicher added.

The pages hosted about 190 events, with the most recent scheduled for January 2019, and about 1,200 people expressing interest in them. We cannot confirm whether any of these events actually occurred, the company added.

 Separately, the social networking giant removed another 107 pages, groups and accounts as well as 41 Instagram accounts that were designed to look like they were operating from Ukraine, but were in fact part of a network that originated in Russia.

The individuals handling these accounts primarily represented themselves as Ukrainian and they operated a variety of fake accounts while sharing local Ukrainian news stories on topics ranging from weather, protests, NATO to health conditions at schools. “We identified some technical overlap with Russia-based activity we saw prior to the US midterm elections, including behavior that shared characteristics with previous Internet Research Agency (IRA) activity,” the company said.</s>Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post it had unearthed two separate operations which originated in Russia, with one active in multiple countries across eastern Europe and the other specific to Ukraine. The company said it had taken down about 364 Facebook Pages and accounts run by the first Russian network and operating in Baltic Sea states, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern Europe, adding that these pages were linked to employees of Russian news agency Sputnik.</s>Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Social giant Facebook said Thursday it's removed more Russian-linked accounts for "inauthentic behavior" as part of an ongoing effort to purge efforts to spread misinformation.

Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook cybersecurity policy, said the accounts were linked to two operations that originated in Russia. One targeted multiple countries and the other focused on Ukraine.

"We removed 364 Facebook Pages and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a network that originated in Russia and operated in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern European countries," Gleicher wrote in a blog post Thursday.

The purge included 75 accounts and 289 pages, and about 790,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages, he added.

"We didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing. We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people.

"We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they post. In these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action."

Facebook included several examples of the removed accounts, and said it shared the information with U.S. law enforcement, Congress, technology companies and policymakers in the targeted countries.

The purge is Facebook's latest effort to weed out the intentional effort to misinform. In October, it removed more than 800 accounts and pages that "consistently" broke Facebook's rules against spam and "coordinated inauthentic behavior." Those accounts and pages, often under phony identities, posted what the company said was a "massive" amount of content to funnel traffic to affiliated websites.

Facebook said at the time the operators fooled some users into thinking the content they posted was more popular than it actually was.

Gleicher didn't offer specific numbers Thursday on how many accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram this time.

"While we are making progress rooting out this abuse, as we've said before, it's an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well-funded," he wrote. "We constantly have to improve to stay ahead. That means building better technology, hiring more people and working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies."

Facebook has made repeated efforts to clean up suspicious online activity after international criticism over how operators used the social media platform to plant phony news stories and sow discord worldwide.

The company said in November it would create an independent governing body to monitor content. Canadian and British lawmakers last year unsuccessfully called on founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify on data security matters.

Facebook's standing was hurt by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the company was duped by a political firm that gained access to personal data on more than 50 million users.</s>(Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Thursday it has removed a number of pages, accounts and groups that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.

The two operations were found to have originated in Russia, with one active in multiple countries and the other was specific to Ukraine, the social media company said in a blog post. bit.ly/2W1h9LR

“We didn’t find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing,” it said.
Facebook removes alleged Russia-based accounts and pages as a part of a crackdown on misuse of its service.