Facebook has been taking extra care to ensure that its platform, which is the world’s largest social network, isn’t used for spreading misinformation. The platform’s role in the misinformation campaign during the previous U.S. elections has been called into question. Countries across the globe have also looked into how the platform could be used to undermine their democracies as well. To show that it’s serious about tackling these issues, Facebook has announced that it’s removing hundreds of American accounts for spreading “sensational” political content.
Facebook has announced that it’s removing 559 pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken its rules against span and “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Going by the activity it has seen and the fact that the U.S. midterm elections are just around the corner, it feels that this was the right time to take this decision.
Many of these accounts and pages were using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names. They posted a lot of content across groups and pages. The same techniques were also used to make their content appear more popular on Facebook than it really was.
Facebook reiterated that it will continue to invest heavily and come up with better technology to ensure that this kind of abuse does not run deep into its platform.
Filed in . Read more about Facebook. Source: newsroom.fb