Facebook announced it identified stealth misinformation campaigns from Russia and Iran and shut down hundreds of accounts as part of its battle against manipulation of its platform, prompting a fresh denial from Moscow on Wednesday.
The social network said late Tuesday that it removed more than 650 pages, groups and accounts identified as “networks of accounts misleading people about what they were doing,” according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Separately, Twitter said it suspended 284 accounts “for engaging in coordinated manipulation,” adding that “it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran.”
“As with prior investigations, we are committed to engaging with other companies and relevant law enforcement entities,” Twitter said.
For Facebook, it was the second time in less than a month that it acted against manipulation, following the shutdown in late July of 32 fake pages and accounts involved in an apparent “coordinated” effort to stoke hot-button issues ahead of November midterm US elections.
The social network giant said content from some of the pages shut down in the latest move was traced back to Iran, while others were tied to groups previously linked to Russian intelligence operations.
Zuckerberg said the latest effort involved two separate sets of campaigns, including one with ties to Iran’s state-owned media and another apparently linked to Russian military intelligence services.
The accounts, some of them on Facebook-owned Instagram, were presented as being independent news or civil society groups but were actually working in coordinated efforts, executives said in a briefing with reporters.
Content posted by accounts targeted Facebook users in Britain, Latin America, the Middle East and the US, according to head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher.
He said that posts by the involved accounts were still being scrutinized and their goals were unclear at this point.
