Facebook warns of campaign to influence midterms

Facebook has shut down a sophisticated disinformation operation on its platform that engaged in divisive messaging ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, the company said Tuesday, an escalation of what a top executive described as an “arms race” to manipulate the public using its tools.

Facebook said it discovered 32 false pages and profiles that were created between March 2017 and this May, which lured 290,000 people with ads, events and regular posts on topics such as race, fascism and feminism — and sought to stir opposition to President Donald Trump. The company informed law enforcement before it deleted the profiles Tuesday morning. It also notified lawmakers of the activity last week and said it would notify the real Facebook users who were swept up in the operation.

One of the most popular pages had links to the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-backed organization of Russian operatives that flooded Facebook with disinformation around the 2016 election, Facebook said.

The disclosure — the first admission of coordinated disinformation on Facebook that could affect the November election — is a sign that manipulation continues to be an active problem for Facebook and its billions of users, even after the company has spent heavily to prevent it. It also raised questions about whether other technology companies are still being used as conduits for disinformation, as Google, Twitter and others were around the last election.