On the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, Facebook took down 115 suspicious Facebook and Instagram accounts after federal law enforcement officials say they may have had links to foreign entities.<\/b>
\nFaced with ongoing concerns over its role in the 2016 presidential election, Facebook said it removed 115 dubious Facebook and Instagram accounts a day before Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections for operating with \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behavior.\u201d
The company said in a blog post late Monday that it removed 30 Facebook accounts and 85 from Instagram, which U. S. law enforcement officials said were \u201clinked to foreign entities.\u201d Almost all the Facebook pages involved were in either French or Russian, while the Instagram accounts that were removed were mostly in English. Facebook said some of the accounts focused on celebrities, while others centered around politics.
Facebook said federal officials notified the company about the suspicious pages on Sunday. The company said that the nature of the current election season influenced its decision to act swiftly.
\u201cTypically, we would be further along with our analysis before announcing anything publicly,\u201d Facebook said in a statement. \u201cBut given that we are only one day away from important elections in the U. S., we wanted to let people know about the action we\u2019ve taken and the facts as we know them today.\u201d
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U. K., Canada seek to question Facebook\u2019s Zuckerberg before \u2018grand committee\u2019 on fake news\t Facebook said it was continuing to investigate the sites it has taken down and would deliver updates on the matter, including if it finds that the suspicious accounts are tied to the Russian-based Internet Research Agency. The IRA is a Saint Petersburg-based company that is believed to have set up fake accounts on social media sites on the part of Russian businesses and political entities.
The IRA was among three Russian organizations, and 13 Russian individuals, that a U. S. grand jury indicted in early 2018 on charges of illegal interference in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

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