Facebook removes 364 pages linked to employees of Russian news agency

Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) has removed 364 pages and accounts linked to employees of Russian news agency Sputnik from its platform.

The social network's head of cyber security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a blog post it had uncovered two separate operations which originated in Russia, with one active in multiple countries in eastern Europe and the other specific to Ukraine.

The pages and accounts were run by the first Russian network and operated in Baltic Sea states, central Asia, the Caucasus and central and eastern Europe.

Facebook said some of the accounts regularly posted about "anti-Nato sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption".

Based on a tip from US law enforcement, Facebook said it had separately removed 107 pages, groups and accounts and 41 Instagram accounts that originated in Russia and operated in Ukraine.

In a statement, it said: "We didn't find any links between these operations, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing."

The social media website said the two operations engaged in "inauthentic behaviour" on Facebook and Instagram and tried to "manipulate people".

Facebook has faced strong criticism in the past two years for the slow rate of development in tools to combat extremist content and propaganda on its platforms.

It and rival social media site Twitter (Frankfurt: A1W6XZ - news) took down millions of posts and closed accounts linked to influence operations by Russia, Iran and other nations in the run-up to the US mid-term elections in November last year.

Mr Gleicher said: "We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they post.

"In these cases, the people behind this activity co-ordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action."

Past investigations in the US found that Russia had used Facebook to post material aiming to influence and interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook removed more than 100 accounts a day before the US midterm elections in November last year as it believed they were linked to "foreign entities".

It also removed more than 80 pages, groups and accounts the month before, claiming they were linked to Iran.