On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it is removed 70 65 Facebook and Instagram mainly Russian-speaking accounts of the Agency Internet research (Ira), the Russian group accused of meddling in the 2016 presidential elections in the United States.
In addition, the Facebook pages 138 controlled by the Ira, were also closed. Many of these pages also had ads that were seized.
Tuesday, blog, the head of security Facebook Alex Stamos, he wrote: “the pages that had content, the vast majority of them (95%) were in Russian — or targeted on people living in Russia or Russian-speaking around the world, including from nearby countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.”
He adds that “the Ira repeatedly use a complex network of false accounts to solve and manipulate people who use Facebook, including before, during and after the presidential elections in 2016 in the United States.”
The blog notes that the accounts and pages were deleted from the platform not because of their content, which provides information about domestic and international political issues, as well as information about the Russian culture and tourism, but only because they were under the control of the Ira.
As the General Director of Facebook mark Zuckerberg published Tuesday, he wrote that the accounts were closed because their goal is to “manipulate people in the United States, Europe and Russia.” Of course, if 95 per cent removed account were in Russian, their target audience in the US and Europe should be relatively small.
“Safety is not a problem you ever fully resolve. Such organizations as the Ira sophisticated adversaries who are constantly changing, but we will continue to improve our technology to stay ahead — especially when it comes to protecting the integrity of elections,” he added in his post in Facebook.
Earlier this year, a Federal Grand jury indicted 13 Russian national and three Russian groups, including the Ira for Eastern Europe and Russia “Troll farms”. The charges came in the studies of the special adviser Robert Mueller on Russia’s intervention in the presidential election of 2016.
Muller blamed the former officials from the U.S. President campaign in 2016, Donald trump by Paul Manafort and Rick gates for tax fraud and related costs associated with their work as lobbyists for the Ukrainian politicians before joining the campaign. Michael Flynn, briefly trump the national security adviser, and George Papadopoulos, a campaign Advisor, was convicted of perjury in the investigation. No accusations of conspiracy or collusion with Russia was directed against members of the presidential campaign, and in Moscow, and trump repeatedly denied that such a conspiracy occurred.
Last month trump called the current investigation into Muller’s “witch Hunt”.
“Total witch Hunt with massive conflicts of interest!” Trump wrote on March 19.
Zuckerberg previously rejected accusations that its Platform was used by foreign agents of influence in the presidential election. The popular social media platform, however, was recently pulled into a quagmire of elections after the recent statements that data and political consulting firm Cambridge the analyst obtained information about users of Facebook through the application of personality developed by Alexander Kogan, Cambridge research officer of the University.
The media claim that the firm worked on the US President campaign in 2016, Donald trump, and shares a quarter and a month to develop a mechanism that will allow him to predict and influence the behavior of voters. Reportedly, the Contractor, the analysts received access to restricted data from 50 million users Facebook.
Facebook, Cambridge Analytics and data mining corporate parents, SCL for the group accused of misrepresenting themselves in their application as an educational research tool, not a way to obtain personal data of users of Facebook’.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
