Facebook removes multiple fake Pages, Groups, accounts

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook on Thursday said it removed multiple Pages, Groups and accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behaviour on its platform and Instagram and originated in Thailand, Russia, Ukraine and Honduras.

It removed 12 Facebook accounts and 10 Pages for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that originated in Thailand and focused primarily on Thailand and the US.

"Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that some of this activity was linked to an individual based in Thailand associated with New Eastern Outlook, a Russian government-funded journal based in Moscow," Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook said in a blog post.

"We didn't find any links between the campaigns we've removed, but all created networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," he added.

Ahead of the election in Ukraine, Facebook removed 18 Facebook accounts, nine Pages and three Groups for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that originated primarily in Russia and focused on Ukraine.

"Also, ahead of the election in Ukraine, we removed 83 Facebook accounts, two Pages, 29 Groups, and five Instagram accounts engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that originated in Russia and the Luhansk region in Ukraine and focused on Ukraine," said Facebook.

Finally, said Facebook, it removed 181 accounts and 1,488 Facebook Pages that were involved in domestic-focused inauthentic activity in Honduras.

MLAs present in the meeting also highlighted various issues pertaining to the management of sewerage, street lighting and solid waste management. Considering the chocking of sewerage, a big problem, Mr. Brahm Mohindra consented to provide one more Super Sucker Machine to MC Amritsar. Local Bodies Minister also said that Municipal Corporations are autonomous bodies and these should be self reliant and they should mobiles all their available resources to generate more funds.  He exhorted the Mayor Mr. Karamjit Singh Rintu to tap all available resources to increase the revenue of MC Amritsar.

Mr. Brahm Mohindra said that he would visit the Amritsar within a month and will personally monitor that all the commitments made in this meeting by the officers and leaders are being executed at the ground level.

MLAs highlighted the issue that Improvement Trust in recent past has installed 15 Tubewells in the city, but none of the Tubewell is in working condition. Mr. Brahm Mohindra took strong cognizance of the matter and asked the authorities to start the Tubewells immediately. The Minister also instructed Mr. A. Venu Prasad, Principal Secretary of Local Bodies Department to conduct an inquiry in this matter and fix accountability as who is responsible for this serious breach of official duty.

Prominent amongst those who were present in the meeting included Mr. Mohinder Pal Singh Additional Director, Local Government, Komal Mittal, Commissioner MC Amritsar, Mr. Mukul Soni, Chief Engineer, Local Government, Mr. K.P. Goyal, Engineer in Chief, PWSSB and other senior officers of Local Bodies Department and MC Amritsar.