Tech giant Facebook has taken down several accounts, Pages, and Groups that originated in Pakistan and targeted primarily domestic audiences in addition to also focusing on English, Arabic, and Pashto-speaking audiences globally.
Facebook removed 40 Facebook accounts, 25 Pages, six Groups and 28 Instagram accounts that originated in Pakistan.
“We found this activity as part of our internal investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior with some links to the network we removed in April 2019. We linked it to individuals associated with AlphaPro, a Pakistan-based PR firm,” the social network said in a statement on Thursday.
In total, the company removed 123 malicious accounts, 77 Instagram Accounts, 55 Pages, and 12 Groups as part of its latest action over coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) networks in the month of May.
“We removed 83 Facebook accounts, 30 Pages, six Groups, and 49 Instagram accounts operated by local nationals in Sudan on behalf of individuals in Russia. This network targeted primarily Sudan,” Facebook said.
“We linked this latest activity to individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA),” it added.
