Targeting users in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa
Facebook said on Thursday it had removed 265 Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages, groups and events linked to Israel due to what it called “inauthentic behaviour” targeting users in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The move is part of wider efforts by Facebook to address concerns over privacy lapses and hate speech in social media.
Facebook said the “inauthentic” activity originated in Israel and focused on Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia as well as in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
“The people behind this network used fake accounts to run pages, disseminate their content and artificially increase engagement,” Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook said in a statement.
He identified Israel’s Archimedes Group as the source of some of the activity. “This organisation and all its subsidiaries are now banned from Facebook, and it has been issued a cease and desist letter,” said Gleicher.
Read the article on itNews (from Reuters).