FILE PHOTO: People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
San Francisco, United States — Facebook said Thursday that it had taken down nine deceptive online campaigns as marketing firms make a business of using fake accounts to sway opinions.
The campaigns aimed posts or comments at people in Azerbaijan, Central African Republic, Mexico, Palestine, Peru, and Ukraine, according to the leading social network.
“All of the organizations targeted primarily or exclusively audiences in their own countries,” Facebook head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said during a briefing.
“Ukraine is an interesting example; it is a top source of coordinated inauthentic behavior activity removed from the platform in the past few years.”
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Facebook disrupted two separate campaigns in that country using fake accounts.
One of the campaigns was uncovered as a result of a tip from the FBI, and was linked to Ukrainians sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for a separate campaign to influence the presidential election here, according to Gleicher.
