Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, announced in a blog post on January 17 that the company had removed hundreds of accounts, pages, and groups on Facebook and Instagram that spread disinformation among its users. Several of these pages were said to have originated in Russia, as part of two operations that target users across the former Soviet space. Another one was found to be specific to Ukraine.
Gleicher said that although no explicit links were found between these operations, they used similar tactics that consisted of “creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing.” He also adds that 364 of these accounts and pages were linked to Sputnik employees. Sputnik is a state-run news site that is based in Russia.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement published by RIA Navosti news agency, Sputnik accused Facebook of making “clearly political” decisions, and that their decision to purge accounts was considered to be “censorship.”
However, Gleicher writes, “Our security efforts are ongoing to help us stay a step ahead and uncover this kind of abuse, particularly in light of important political moments and elections in Europe this year.” “We are committed to making improvements and building stronger partnerships around the world to more effectively detect and stop this activity,” he says.
