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Facebook removes over 2,600 pages "connected to Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo"

The social network’s administration said that the owners of the specified accounts and pages aimed "to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing"

© AP Photo/Noah Berger

MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. Facebook removed more than 2,600 pages, in particular those allegedly linked to Russia and Iran, according to a statement released by the social media on Tuesday.

"Today we removed 2,632 Pages, Groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram," the statement says. "The operations we found were connected to Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo."

The social media’s administration said that the owners of the specified accounts and pages aimed "to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing." Some information related to Ukraine was published on pages allegedly linked to Russia, the statement says.

"The individuals behind these activities used fake accounts primarily to operate Groups and Pages posting spam content," the social media’s administration stated, adding that some of the specified people published "content related to Ukrainian news and politics."

The accounts allegedly linked to Iran were targeted at the audience in Egypt, Israel, India, Indonesia, Italy and Kazakhstan, Facebook said. Their owners said they were residents of the specified states and published reports that allegedly broadcast the position of the Iranian state-run media on issues like sanctions against Tehran, conflicts in Syria and Yemen and the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

Facebook repeatedly deleted fake pages which, it said, were operated from Russia and the owners of which allegedly tried to influence political and social processes in other countries, including the US. Facebook stated that its experts registered a campaign targeted at driving a wedge in the American society. Russia refuted these statements.

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