Facebook Removes 10,000 Accounts Linked to Disinformation Campaigns Across 13 Countries

This operation is part of the social network’s fight against campaigns and fake profiles that deceptively influence public opinion at home and abroad. Profiles from 13 countries, including Morocco, Georgia, Myanmar, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Iran, Egypt, the United States and Mexico, were among those removed in October by the social network.

According to Facebook, the operation concerns a network of accounts, pages and groups in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a radical Islamist group banned in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In the United States, the removed accounts were those of supporters of Donald Trump. In early October, hundreds of profiles linked to the conservative group Turning Point USA via Rally Forge, an American marketing company, had been removed on the grounds that it was generating and posting a flood of pro-Trump comments on news articles, which constitutes a violation of Facebook’s rules.