Facebook Removes 398 Accounts Linked to Iranian Disinformation Networks

Facebook has removed 118 Pages, 389 Facebook accounts, 27 Groups, and six Instagram accounts in the past month working out of Iran, the company stated in its April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report.

Campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate on social media originated in Iran and focused on a wide range of countries including Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, the US, UK and Zimbabwe.

Facebook’s investigation linked this activity to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Corporation (IRIB).

IRIB is an Iranian media corporation that holds a monopoly on domestic radio and television services in the Islamic Republic.

Facebook found this network as part of its internal investigations into “suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior, based in part on some links to our past takedowns.”

The social media giant has previously closed down engaged in disinformation campaigns.

In total, Facebook removed during April eight networks of accounts, Pages and Groups. Two of them — from Russia and Iran — focused internationally, and the remaining six — in the US, Georgia, Myanmar and Mauritania — targeted domestic audiences in their respective countries.