Facebook Pulls Down Hundreds Of Accounts Over Hate Comments In UK

Officials of Facebook have pulled down   over 137 accounts and pages in the UK for spreading fake news and other inflammatory comments.

There were 23 Facebook pages, 74 Facebook accounts, five groups and 35 Instagram accounts taken down by the social media giant.

It also took similar action against 31 accounts and pages in Romania for engaging in hate speech and making divisive comments.

Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said over 100 accounts on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram were removed in the exercise adding that the move were part of a domestic focused network in the UK.

He added that the information had been shared with law enforcement and politicians in the UK.

According to him,”The individuals behind these accounts represented themselves as far-right and anti-far-right activists, frequently changed page and group names, and operated fake accounts to engage in hate speech and spread divisive comments on both sides of the political debate in the UK,”

Gleicher pointed out that” Despite their misrepresentation of their identities, we found that these pages, groups and accounts were connected,adding that they frequently posted about local and political news including topics like immigration, free speech, racism, LGBT issues, far-right politics, issues between India and Pakistan, and religious beliefs including Islam and Christianity.

“They had a combined 175,000 followers on Facebook and 4,500 on Instagram and contained names such as Anti Far Right Extremists, Atheists Research Centre, and Politicalised.

Mr Gleicher said: “We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people.

“We’re taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted.

“In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.”

Mr Gleicher said: “While we are making progress rooting out this abuse, as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge because the people responsible are determined and well funded.

“We constantly have to improve to stay ahead.

“That means building better technology, hiring more people and working more closely with law enforcement, security experts and other companies.

“Their collaboration was critical to these investigations.”