Facebook announced Friday that it has removed two networks of accounts, Pages and Groups for “engaging in foreign and government interference.” Facebook’s Head of Security Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher said: “We removed two unconnected networks of accounts, Pages and Groups for engaging in foreign and government interference – which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a government or foreign actor – on Facebook and Instagram.”
He indicated that the first operation originated in the country of Georgia and “targeted domestic audiences,” whereas the second originated in Vietnam and the US focusing “mainly on the US, and some on Vietnam and Spanish and Chinese-speaking audiences globally.”
“Each of them created networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing,” he noted. He added that “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.”
Up to 39 Facebook accounts, 344 Pages, 13 Groups and 22 Instagram accounts were removed as part of a domestic-focused network that originated in Georgia, while 610 accounts, 89 Facebook Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were removed that originated in Vietnam and the US.