Facebook, Twitter Remove Accounts to Combat Foreign Misinformation--2nd Update

By Robert McMillan

Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. said on Thursday that they removed hundreds of fake accounts from Iran and Venezuela spreading misinformation on their social-media platforms.

Twitter released a report stating that it had recently removed 764 accounts linked to Venezuela, which sent nearly 1 million Twitter messages ahead of the 2018 midterm election in the U.S., some of which were politically themed.

For Facebook, the 783 fake accounts originated in Iran and focused primarily on reaching users in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy.

U.S. social media companies have been waging a continuing battle against false information on their platforms in the aftermath of the 2016 election. The 2016 meddling mainly stemmed from Russian, according to U.S. authorities, , but fake accounts originating in other nations have been discovered since then.

Mr. Gleicher of Facebook said about 2 million Facebook accounts followed at least one of the pages.

Those pages and accounts were designed to seem like local voices -- but were in fact largely material lifted from Iranian state media, he said during a call with reporters.

"The types of messages we saw were messages and news stories focused on topics like Israel-Palestine relations, the conflict in Syria and Yemen and, in particular, the role of major countries in those conflicts including the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia," Mr. Gleicher said.

These accounts and pages purchased under $30,000 in Facebook and Instagram ads, Mr. Gleicher said. Facebook hasn't yet determined how many people were reached via these advertisements, he said.

Twitter said, in its report, "We continue our efforts to address those threats posed by hostile foreign governments and foster an environment conducive to healthy, meaningful conversations on our service."

In September, Twitter also removed 2,617 fake accounts linked to Iran. The company also removed 418 Russia-linked accounts, most of which were taken down ahead of the midterm election.

Facebook's action is the latest in a series of takedowns aimed at removing misleading political content. In August, the company removed 652 pages and accounts that originated in Iran. This most recent takedown was a follow-up on that investigation, Mr. Gleicher said. "Our teams have been building up their analysis and pattern matching of the pages we removed back in August looking for additional activity," he said.

Facebook also removed an unspecified number of Russian pages in August, and reported further takedowns in July, October and November of last year.

Write to Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 31, 2019 16:53 ET (21:53 GMT)

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