Facebook found dozens of suspicious pages before new elections in the United States



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Facebook has informed US authorities of the "Coordinated Influence Campaign" identified before the next US election. Who led this campaign, they do not know yet in the social network.

32 pages and accounts were removed from social networks of Facebook and Instagram, in which they found signs of "coordinated unauthenticated behavior". The personality and purpose of their actions, says the Facebook message.

These testimonies, in particular, "are related to the protests planned in Washington next week," said Facebook. "Obviously, the one who created the accounts, he spent a lot more effort than the Russian Internet Research Agency before," the report said.

"Our investigation has just begun, we are not yet ready for all the facts"

The results of the Facebook inquiry during the hearings were presented to the United States Congress. New York Times, the company informed lawmakers that it was able to identify a "coordinated political influence campaign" ahead of mid-term elections scheduled in the United States. November .. As a result of the survey, Facebook has removed eight public Facebook pages, 17 user profiles and seven Instagram accounts.

According to the company, Facebook experts, in collaboration with Atlantic Council experts, have successfully identified the participation of these users and public policy actions in the US The Facebook message notes that it has not been possible to establish reliably connecting most of these accounts with the Russian Internet search agency, accused of interference in US elections. However, some of the deleted pages of the communities were run by people whom the US authorities believed to be badociated with the agency.

In addition, the New York Times quotes two sources familiar with the results of congressional hearings. According to them, the direction of Facebook is confident that "Russia, most likely, has to do with it."

The deleted pages and accounts were created between March 2017 and May 2018. On the most popular of them was signed about 300 000 users. Between April 2017 and June 2018, they posted 150 paying ads valued at $ 11,000, some of which were paid in Canadian dollars. Throughout this period, suspicious accounts have created 30 pages of public events. On the most popular of them about 4,700 users have subscribed. To hide their real name, community administrators used VPN and Internet telephony services, and their accounts were paid by third parties.

Since last year, the United States is investigating the interference of Moscow in the 2016 presidential election. The case was handled by a team led by the special prosecutor Robert Mueller; In addition, a joint investigation was conducted by both houses of Congress. In addition to studying whether Russian or Russian structures have influenced the public opinion on the eve of the elections, possible links between Donald Trump's team and the Russian authorities are ongoing. ;investigation. In addition, Google and Facebook are studying attempts to interfere in elections through fake pages and media companies in social networks.

The Russian Government rejects the charges of interference. "Russia as a state has never interfered in the internal affairs of the United States, especially in elections." Do you really think it was possible to influence the elections? in the United States from the territory of the Russian Federation and to influence the choice of millions of Americans? It's just ridiculous, "said President Vladimir Putin in June

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