Facebook removed dozens of accounts related to Poroshenko’s parties and other organizations
In December 2020, Facebook has removed dozens of accounts related to the “European Solidarity” party and the NGOs “Sprava Hromad” (Communities Affairs) and the “Anti-Corruption Blockpost” as Radio Liberty reported on January 12.
The reason for the removal is called "coordinated inauthentic behavior." This concept is interpreted on Facebook as "a coordinated effort to manipulate public debate (...)."
In a lengthy report, Facebook explained that "We removed 27 Facebook accounts, 37 Pages, 21 Groups and 13 Instagram accounts for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This domestic-focused activity originated in Ukraine. The people behind this activity used fake accounts to create fictious personas, evade our enforcement, manage Pages and post in Groups named after cities in Ukraine. They also shared content from official Pages of political parties and politicians and liked and commented on other people’s posts to make them appear more popular than they were. This network posted in Ukrainian and Russian about news and politics in Ukraine, including supportive commentary about “European Solidarity” and its candidates, NGO “Sprava Gromad”, former president Poroshenko and criticism of president Zelensky. Some of this content was rated false by local fact-checkers”.
The “European Solidarity” party and the NGOs “Sprava Hromad” and “Anti-Corruption Blockpost” have not yet commented on Facebook's decision.
Apart from dozens of accounts in Ukraine, Facebook has also removed accounts in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Argentina, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco that target audiences within those countries. Five more networks, those ones from Iran, Ukraine, France, Morocco and Russia, aimed to influence people outside these countries. In December, a total of 1,957 Facebook and 707 Instagram accounts were taken down due to "coordinated inauthentic behavior," and 156 pages and 727 groups were removed.
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