Facebook has identified and banned more accounts engaged in misleading political behaviour ahead of the US mid-term elections in November.
The social network said on Tuesday that it had removed 652 pages, groups, and accounts linked to Russia and, unexpectedly, Iran, for 鈥渃oordinated inauthentic behaviour鈥� that included the sharing of political material.
Shortly after Facebook鈥檚 announcement, Twitter revealed that it had also suspended 284 accounts for 鈥渃oordinated manipulation鈥�, many of them apparently originating from Iran.
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Facebook has significantly stepped up policing of its platform since last year, when it acknowledged that Russian agents successfully ran political influence operations on Facebook聽aimed at swaying the 2016 US presidential election.
The social network said it had not concluded its review of the material and declined to say how or why the state-backed actors were behaving the way they did. But it said it had informed the US and UK governments as well as the US Treasury and State departments because of ongoing sanctions against Iran.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot we don鈥檛 know yet,鈥� said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
Facebook said the actions to remove the pages, groups and accounts on Tuesday morning were the result of four investigations 鈥� three involving Iran, and one involving Russia.
The first involved a group called Liberty Front Press that set up multiple accounts on Facebook and Instagram that were followed by 155,000 other accounts.
The group was linked to Iranian state media based on website registrations, IP addresses and administrator accounts, Facebook said. The first accounts were created in 2013 and posted political content about the Middle East, the UK, and the US, although the focus on the West increased starting last year,聽Facebook聽said.
FireEye, a cyber security firm that alerted聽Facebook聽to the Liberty Front Press group, called it an influence operation apparently aimed at promoting Iranian political interests 鈥渋ncluding anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes鈥� and support for the US-Iran nuclear deal. US president Donald Trump withdrew the US from that agreement earlier this year. While that group did not appear to be attempting to influence the US mid-terms, FireEye said its analysis 鈥渄oes not preclude such attempts being made鈥�.
The second group also had multiple accounts and 15,000 followers. The group was linked to Liberty Front Press and attempted to hack people鈥檚 accounts to spread malware.聽Facebook said it disrupted those attempts.
A third group also operated out of Iran had as many as 813,000 followers, and also shared political content about the Middle East, the UK and US.
In all, the Iranian-linked groups spent some $12,000 in advertising and hosted 28 different events.
A fourth group that attempted to influence politics in Syria and the Ukraine was connected to sources that聽Facebook聽said the US had linked to Russian military intelligence.
鈥淲e鈥檙e working closely with US law enforcement on this investigation,鈥澛燜acebook said in a blog post.
