Facebook finds possible election meddling

SAN FRANCISCO – Acting on a tip from law enforcement, Facebook removed more than 100 accounts – 30 on Facebook, 85 on Instagram – engaged in coordinated activity in French, English and Russian, raising the possibility that foreign actors were attempting to meddle in the U.S. midterm elections.

Facebook said it was alerted Sunday night to the suspicious activity that law enforcement believes may be linked to foreign entities and blocked the accounts in question. Almost all the Facebook pages appeared to be in French or Russian while the Instagram accounts were mostly in English. Some were focused on celebrities, others on political debate, Facebook said.

“Typically, we would be further along with our analysis before announcing anything publicly,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said in a post on its website. “But given that we are only one day away from important elections in the U.S., we wanted to let people know about the action we’ve taken and the facts as we know them today.”

The company said it was too early in its investigation to determine who was behind the effort or how long the accounts had been operating. Facebook said it does not know how many people may have interacted with the Facebook and Instagram accounts.

A joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI said law enforcement is working in “unprecedented ways” to combat foreign influence operations.