Facebook yanks content tied to Iranian effort due to “inauthentic behavior”

Today, Facebook took down 30 pages, 33 Facebook accounts, three Facebook groups, and 16 Instagram accounts that Facebook's head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher said were tied to an influence campaign by a group of actors in Iran.

"It's still early days, and while we have found no ties to the Iranian government, we can't say for sure who is responsible," Gleicher said in a call with press this afternoon. He added that Facebook found some overlap in the accounts' activity with a group of Iran-linked accounts taken down by the company in August. "Given the elections, we took action as soon as we'd completed our initial investigation and shared the information with US and UK government officials, US law enforcement, Congress, other technology companies, and the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab," Gleicher said. He added that Facebook shared information not just with federal officials but with state and local election officials as well to keep them advised of any emerging threat.

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