Facebook closes hundreds of pages linked to Russian propaganda

first of all, the network has according to Facebook spread to countries in the Baltic region, central asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern europe. A total of 289 pages and 75 accounts are closed, says the company.

790.000 accounts. They were reached by the items with the criticism of Nato, about the corruption and about the protest movements. The pages were produced as an independent news media or the general pages on weather, sports, finance and travel. But, according to Facebook's investigation ruled they secretly from the Russian state. ”Despite the fake identities, we discovered that the pages and the accounts were linked to employees of the Sputnik, a news agency in Moscow,” writes Facebook's director of säkerhetspolicyfrågor Nathaniel Gleicher.

Sputnik News is a Russian, regeringstrogen propagandakanal created to bring out the Kremlin's message in the world. Up to 2016 published a Swedish-language site.

the pages were removed was that they were driven by people who used false identities, not for its content, emphasizing Facebook in the post.

the Network seems to have been active in many years. The first payment for the ads should have occurred already in October 2013, and the latest this month. A total shall 135.000 dollars, equivalent to around 1.2 million, should have been put on the advertising to get the sides to the materials to reach more. Payments made in rubles, euros and u.s. dollars.

Read more: New report identifies the Russian attempts to influence U.S. voters

so has a similar, but separate, networks of fake pages discovered after a tip from u.s. authorities. 26 facebook pages, 77 user accounts and four groups have been removed from the site. Unlike the larger network has also been active on Instagram, where 41 accounts have been deleted.

the Messages have been completely targeted against the Ukraine, and the accounts had come from the country, but ruled secretly from Russia. Facebook states that there are similarities with the previous Russian activities in the face of american mellanårsvalet and methods as the well-known Russian trollfabriken, the Internet Research Agency, has used.