Facebook removes 559 'inauthentic' pages spreading political misinformation

Facebook removes 559 'inauthentic' pages spreading political misinformation

San Francisco: Facebook has said it had taken down 559 'inauthentic' pages and 251 accounts that broke the social network's rules against spam and "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

The removal of the pages and accounts is the latest effort by Facebook to combat the spreading of "political misinformation" ahead of the US midterm elections.                                       

The world's top social media network said many actors were using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names and posted massive amounts of content across groups to drive traffic to their websites that were not linked to Facebook, Xinhua reported. 

 

"They post clickbait posts on these Pages to drive people to websites that are entirely separate from Facebook and seem legitimate, but are actually ad farms," Facebook said.

 

They often used their fake accounts to generate fake likes and shares, which "artificially inflates engagement for their inauthentic pages and the posts they share, misleading people about their popularity and improving their ranking in news feed," it added.

 

The social media's announcement is the latest move to combat fake news and misinformation on its platform since it was heavily scrutinised for not effectively blocking foreign organisations that used its service to spread inauthentic information that may influence domestic politics in the United States.

 

Facebook said it chose to disclose its measures to remove the fake accounts to share "some details about the types of behavior that led to this action" ahead of the US midterm elections.

 

The company noted that it has, since this year, enforced a policy against many Pages, Groups and accounts created to "stir up political debate, including in the US, the Middle East, Russia and the UK."(UNI)