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Facebook Removes Hundreds of Accounts Spamming Political Info (theverge.com)

Facebook is purging hundreds of accounts and pages in the U.S., many of which spread political misinformation, for breaking the company's terms against "inauthentic" content and spam. The Verge reports: The company said in a blog post that 559 pages and 251 accounts would be removed. While the accounts used "sensational political content," Facebook did not say that was the reason for the purge. Instead, the accounts and pages will be taken down after they had "consistently broken" the company's rules against gaming its platform. Facebook noted that many used strategies like posting on fake or multiple accounts to generate traffic, or to inflate their popularity. Still, Facebook noted the proximity to the U.S. midterm elections, and said that networks like the ones it removed today are "increasingly" promoting political content that is "often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate." The company said this was the reason it has turned to "behavior" instead of "content" when searching for bad actors.

2 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. 'Spamming' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Meaning, spamming non-Democrat political info

  2. Better article by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a better and more complete article on The Washington Post that describes the type of crap Facebook purged. Spoiler: it's clickbait that leads to other profit driven sites. Don't assume it's all conservative media either because it's not. They got crazy shit for folks of all types.

    Bottom line: this is good for all (even slightly) rational actors.

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