Facebook removes dozens of accounts linked to Iran messages
Facebookhasremoveddozens of accounts linked to Iran that targeted citizens in the UK and US with politically charged messages.
Some 82 pages, groups and accounts originating in the Islamic Republic were erased after posting about topics like race relations and immigration in a pattern of “co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour”, the site said yesterday.
It comes after the social network removed hundreds of pages, groups and profiles linked to Iran which posed as news organisations or activists in the English-speak- ing world back in August.
The network, which has more than two billion users, said some posts targeted Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, while others attacked US president Donald Trump.
The suspicious activity was detected around a week ago, ahead of the US midterm elections on 6 November. Around one million accounts followed at least one of the pages, around 25,000 accounts joined at least one of the groups, and one Instagram account had more than 28,000 followers, Facebook’s head of cyber security said.
Writing on the company’s blog, Nathaniel Gleicher said: “Our threat intelligence team first detected this activity one week ago. Given the [US] elections, we took action as soon as we’d completed our initial investigation.”