- Facebook took down more than 30 accounts pretending to represent African-American support for President Donald Trump, the company said on Thursday.
- The accounts were pushed out by a foreign pro-Trump troll farm in Romania and used names such as “BlackPeopleVoteForTrump” and “We Love Our President.”
- Facebook also removed more than 300 other fake accounts linked to conservative media outlet The Epoch Times, which were peddling pro-Trump conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and anti-racism protests.
- Facebook’s said the crackdown on fake accounts comes as they continue to take action against “coordinated inauthentic behavior” during the presidential campaign, according to NBC News.
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Facebook has removed more than 30 accounts posing as African Americans in support of President Donald Trump, the company said on Thursday.
The accounts, that used names such as “BlackPeopleVoteForTrump” and “We Love Our President,” were pushed out on Instagram and Facebook by a foreign pro-Trump troll farm in Romania.
According to Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher there wasn’t any “clear evidence of financial motivation” or “clear links to known commercial actors in this space,” NBC News reported.
The company removed 35 Facebook accounts, three pages, and 88 Instagram accounts in total.
Separately, Facebook also eliminated more than 300 fake accounts linked to conservative media outlet The Epoch Times. It alleged that they were pushing disinformation about Trump’s campaign and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The accounts also posted about “ongoing US protests and conspiracy theories about who is behind them,” Gleicher said, according to NBC.
The company said it removed 303 Facebook accounts, 181 pages, 44 Facebook groups, and 31 Instagram accounts, which were followed by more than 2 million people.
The fake accounts were tied to a digital media outlet called TruthMedia, allegedly employed by The Epoch Times, and now banned from Facebook.
Stephen Gregory, the publisher of The Epoch Times’ English-language editions, told NBC that it was not associated with TruthMedia.
It is not the first time Facebook has confronted The Epoch Times. Last year, it removed more than 700 fake accounts, which were posting stories published by the news outlet and banned it from advertising after it tried to get around Facebook’s ad review system.
Facebook’s said the crackdown on fake accounts comes as they continue to take action against “coordinated inauthentic behavior” during the presidential campaign, according to NBC News.
Troll farms are groups of internet trolls that work together to manipulate internet discourse with fake accounts and interfere in political opinions.
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