Facebook social media has announced that it has removed a fake account network that uses fake identities to campaign to post materials supporting US President Donald Trump on the site and Instagram.
This network is one of two that have been suspended because of "participating in foreign and government interference" and seeking to "mislead others," according to Facebook security official Nathaniel Gletcher.
"In each of these two cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with each other and used fake accounts," Gletcher said in a statement posted on the Internet.
The announcement is Facebook's latest disclosure of account fraud cases created using fake identities to inflate the image of a political group or cause.
A campaign tracked by Facebook has reached the US-based media outlet, Epoque, and has been exposed to the controversial Falun Gong cult, and to a site called "BL", according to Gletcher.
"The network that focuses on the (BL) Group has repeatedly violated a number of our policies against unreliable coordinated behavior, spam and misinformation to name just a few," Gletcher added, and the BL group was banned on Facebook.
In this context, Facebook removed 610 accounts, 89 pages, 156 groups and 72 Instagram accounts created in Vietnam and the United States, some of which used identification images made using artificial intelligence allegedly from people in the United States, according to the social network.
Gletcher said that these accounts "usually publish amusing content and news about US policy issues, including Trump's trial and conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, trade, family values, and freedom of religion." The content templates provided are all pro-Trump and promotive.
About 55 million accounts belonging to one or more pages managed by this network spent less than $ 9.5 million in advertisements on Facebook and Instagram combined, according to Facebook.
The second network of accounts I remove from Facebook and Instagram is from Georgia and targeted people there, according to Gletcher.
"Although the people behind this activity have tried to hide their identities and coordinate with each other, our investigation has linked this activity to Panda Advertising in Georgia and the government led by the Georgian Dream Party," said Gletcher.
39 accounts, 344 pages, 13 groups on Facebook, and 22 Instagram accounts have collected more than 440,000 followers overall, after they were linked to the Georgia campaign.