Facebook removes accounts from Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Honduras

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it had removed accounts from Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Honduras, in its latest move against "coordinated inauthentic behavior." Facebook said it was taking down the pages, groups, and accounts based on their behavior and not the content they had posted.

The company has been cracking down on such accounts globally after coming under fire for not developing tools quickly enough to combat extremist content and propaganda operations. "In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves," Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy, said in emailed comments to Reuters. "We don't want our services to be used to manipulate people." Across the four countries, a total of 294 accounts and 1,509 pages were closed, Facebook said.