Over 2000 accounts linked to Russia and Iran removed by Facebook for fraudulent behaviour

Thousands of accounts, which were found engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour, have been removed from Facebook and Instagram. Facebook announced on its blog that 2,632 Pages, Groups, and accounts found connected to Iran, Russia, Macedonia, and Kosovo have been removed.

These accounts used tactics such as creating networks of accounts to mislead other users into who they were and what they were doing, Facebook explained in its blog. Some accounts engaged in spam, while some were found engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour as part of multiple networks tied to Iran. Some of these accounts operated in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kashmir, and Kazakhstan. The account owners represented themselves as locals and made-up media entities using fake accounts and impersonated real political groups and media organisations to spread news stories on the current events.

Shockingly, millions of users followed one or more of these Pages and joined these Groups. A significant number of users also followed one or more of these Instagram accounts, while more than USD 15,000 was spent on ads.