Facebook removes Russia-based accounts and pages

Facebook has removed 70 Facebook and 65 Instagram accounts that were controlled by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA).

“Many of the pages also ran ads, all of which have been removed,” said Facebook.

Of the pages that had content, the vast majority of them (95%) were in Russian – targeted people living in Russia or Russian-speakers around the world.

Facebook’s chief security officer Alex Stamos said uncovering this activity took months of work.

“The IRA has repeatedly used complex networks of inauthentic accounts to deceive and manipulate people who use Facebook, including before, during, and after the 2016 US presidential elections,” said Stamos.

“We removed this latest set of pages and accounts solely because they were controlled by the IRA – not based on the content.”