Facebook removes accounts involved in misinformation on the eve of mid-session

US law enforcement agencies informed Facebook of activity Sunday night, the company said in a blog. Government officials believe that the business could be linked to foreign players, the company said. The company has blocked 30 accounts on Facebook and 85 on Instagram.

The revelation points out that foreign actors still use social media to try to shape American politics, just over a year after Facebook revealed that Russian state actors had used Facebook, Instagram and others. platforms for interfering in the 2016 presidential race.

In its revelation on Monday, Facebook said it could not share much of the details on the accounts but chose to announce the survey given the proximity of Tuesday's election. The company announced that it would provide more updates as a result of its investigation, especially if its activity was related to Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that would be originally from the United States. much of the Kremlin-backed disinformation efforts and targeted for 2016. election.

"Generally, we would be more advanced in our analysis before announcing anything publicly," said Nathaniel Gleicher, who oversees Facebook's cybersecurity policy. "But since we are only one day in the United States, we wanted to inform people of the measures we have taken and the facts as we know them today."

Last year, Facebook said that Russian-created publications reached about 146 million people on Facebook, including 20 million on Instagram. Russia has denied any interference in the US elections. Since then, Facebook has discovered smaller batches of fake accounts created by actors in Iran and Russia, including recently, at the end of October, apparently aimed at influencing political debate.

A Facebook spokesman declined to say whether the accounts were trying to interfere in the mid-term elections. The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the National Intelligence Director did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Facebook's announcement late Monday came shortly after a joint statement by senior government officials, including FBI and DHS leaders, detailing the government's efforts to prevent mid-term electoral interference .

"At the moment, there is nothing to indicate that the electoral infrastructure of our country is compromised, which could prevent the vote, change the count of votes or disrupt the ability to count the votes," the statement said. But the United States must know that foreign actors – and Russia in particular – continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through divisive actions.

Several US officials, including DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, have said in recent weeks that they are more concerned about misinformation on social media than about direct attacks on election infrastructure.

The pages associated with the 30 Facebook accounts were mainly in French and Russian, while the Instagram accounts were largely in English, said Facebook on Monday. Some of the Instagram accounts have been focused on political debate, while others have posted articles on celebrities. The Facebook spokesman declined to say on which topics the Facebook pages were written.

Write to Deepa Seetharaman at [email protected] and Dustin Volz at [email protected]