Facebook have taken down a network of more than 100 accounts and pages for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” on its social network; this is the first time it has done this for UK-based operations seeking to influence British citizens.
The operation was spread over Facebook and Instagram, it used a network of face accounts to pose as far-right activists and their opponents.It ran pages and groups whose names would frequently changed in order to get more followers and operate fake accounts to engage in hate speech and spread diverse comments on both sides of UK political debate .
The pages, with names like “Anti Far Right Extremists”, “Atheists Research Centre”, and “Politicalised”, attracted about 175,000 followers on Facebook, and another 4,500 on Instagram, according to Facebook.
Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher said: “We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,”
He added: “We’re taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted. In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.
“While we are making progress rooting out this abuse, as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well funded. We constantly have to improve to stay ahead. That means building better technology, hiring more people and working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies. Their collaboration was critical to these investigations.”
According to Ben Nimmo of the Atlantic Council the operation was apparently intended “to counter far-right representations of Muslims, LGBT communities and minorities in the UK”.
The pages were to share content from mainstream news sources but also share original content.
The removes come the day after Mark Zuckerberg published a memo about the company becoming a private focused social network by emphasising direct messaging and end-to-end encryption above public sharing.
Facebook said the pages have spent around £1,140 on advertising between them. The earliest advert was placed in December 2013, and the most recent in October 2018. There were 23 Facebook pages, 74 Facebook accounts, five groups and 35 Instagram accounts taken down.
