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Facebook sweep deletes some fake Trump supporters and COVID conspiracies
The sweep targeted coordinated fake behavior, not specific content.
Facebook has removed several networks of accounts that were spreading misinformation in the US ahead of the 2020 presidential election. One of the troll farms, which was based in Romania, posed as a group of African Americans who said they supported President Donald Trump. They used names like “BlackPeopleVoteForTrump” to share their content.Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Facebook, told NBC the group’s motives were unclear . However, the company didn’t see “clear evidence of financial motivation.” Gleicher went on to stress Facebook took action against the organization for using fake accounts to game the company’s algorithms, not the specific content they were posting.
A larger enforcement action saw the company ban 303 Facebook accounts and 31 Instagram accounts linked to Epoch Media Group, the publisher of The Epoch Times. The operation pushed conservative conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the US, Canada and a variety of other countries. Facebook said approximately 2 million accounts across both platforms followed the operation.
This is not the first time Facebook has taken action against Epoch Media Group. In August 2019, Facebook banned the company for shady ad-buying practices. Later that same year, it banned 610 Facebook accounts and 72 Instagram accounts linked to a company that was operating as a proxy for Epoch Media Group. At the time, Facebook said approximately 55 million accounts, many of them based outside of the US, followed the operation in one way or another. In some instances, the troll farm used artificial intelligence to cover its tracks.