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Facebook Says Russian Trolls Were At It Again, Used Fake Accounts With Trump & Kanye West To Target Voters Before Midterms

<p>Not again&excl; Roommates&comma; it looks like the Russian trolls weren’t done with the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;nytimes&period;com&sol;2018&sol;11&sol;07&sol;technology&sol;facebook-russia-midterms&period;html">2016 presidential election<&sol;a>&period; According to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;newsroom&period;fb&period;com&sol;news&sol;2018&sol;11&sol;last-weeks-takedowns&sol;">Facebook<&sol;a>&comma; fake Russian-linked Instagram accounts used public figures like Trump and Kanye West and hot-button topics surrounding race and gender issues to target voters in the midterm elections&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Facebook reports that they removed 36 accounts&comma; 6 pages&comma; and 99 Instagram accounts for &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;coordinated inauthentic behavior” after a tip from the FBI&period; More than 1 million people &&num;8211&semi; 600&comma;000 reportedly located in the US &&num;8212&semi; followed at least one of the Instagram accounts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Over the last year&comma; we have been much more proactive in finding and removing inauthentic behavior&comma; including from foreign actors&period; To stay ahead&comma; we need to work closely with government&comma; the security community and other tech companies&period; Last week’s takedowns were a good example of that work in action&comma;” Facebook wrote in a blog post&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;On November 4&comma; the FBI tipped us off about online activity that they believed was linked to foreign entities&period; Based on this tip&comma; we quickly identified a set of accounts that appeared to be engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior&comma; which is banned on Facebook because we want people to be able to trust the connections they make on our services&comma;” the social media platform detailed&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;So we immediately blocked these accounts&comma; and given the timing just before the US midterm elections&comma; publicly announced what we found and the action we were taking&period; We also shared that information with the government and other companies to help them with their own investigations&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Russia&&num;8217&semi;s Internet Research Agency is believed to be responsible for all of this&period; This is the same group that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;tried to sway the 2016 presidential election by spreading politically divisive messages&comma;” <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;usatoday&period;com&sol;story&sol;news&sol;2018&sol;11&sol;13&sol;election-2018-results-how-russians-used-celebrities-target-voters&sol;1991065002&sol;">USA Today<&sol;a> reports&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Ultimately&comma; this effort may have been connected to the IRA&comma; but we aren’t best placed to say definitively whether that is the case&period; As multiple independent experts have pointed out&comma; trolls have an incentive to claim that their activities are more widespread and influential than may be the case&period; That appears to be true here as well&comma;” Facebook wrote&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;What’s clear is that as we improve&comma; our opponents will change their tactics and improve&comma; too&period; They are smart&comma; well-funded and have every incentive to continue their efforts&comma; even if some of their actions have very little impact&period; To stay ahead of this misuse&comma; we need to continue to invest heavily in security&comma; as well as our work with governments and other technology companies&period; It will take the combined efforts of the public and private sectors to prevent foreign interference in elections&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Roommates&comma; we will keep you posted when more details are released&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine; <div class&equals;"wpra-reactions-wrap wpra-plugin-container" style&equals;"justify-content&colon; center&semi;&semi;"> <div class&equals;"wpra-reactions-container" data-ver&equals;"1&period;3&period;10" data-post&lowbar;id&equals;"45700" data-show&lowbar;count&equals;"true" data-enable&lowbar;share&equals;"onclick" data-behavior&equals;"regular" data-animation&equals;"true" data-share&lowbar;url&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;dev&period;theshaderoom&period;com&sol;facebook-says-russian-trolls-were-at-it-again-used-fake-accounts-with-kanye-west-to-target-voters-before-midterms&sol;" data-secure&equals;"0fd8f29de8"> <div class&equals;"wpra-call-to-action" style&equals;"color&colon; 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