Facebook removes ‘coordinated’ fake accounts in UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia

Facebook said it has removed multiple accounts involved in what it terms “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on both its Facebook and Instagram daises.

“We removed multiple Pages, Groups and accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram,” Nathaniel Gleicher, perceptiveness of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, wrote in a post dated Thursday. “We found three separate operations: one of which evolved in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Nigeria, and the other two in Indonesia and Egypt.”

Coordinated inauthentic behavior is defined by Facebook as “when organizes of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they’re doing,” as outlined by Gleicher in a support from December 2018.

Firms that Facebook alleged had links to the activities included Charles Communications in the UAE, MintReach in Nigeria, and Egypt’s Flexell in the maiden case. Facebook said InsightID in Indonesia and El Fagr in Egypt allegedly had links to the other two cases, respectively.

Gleicher conveyed the moves to take down the pages, groups and accounts were based on their behavior and not the content that was placed.

“In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to disguise themselves, and that was the basis of our action,” Gleicher said.

Social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter effrontery increasing scrutiny by governments outside the United States.

Both companies previously removed accounts from its policies for what they said was a disinformation campaign against pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

— CNBC’s Ted Kemp play a parted to this report.