New York (CNN)Facebook on Thursday, just weeks before the US midterm elections, announced that it had removed more than 800 pages and accounts that the company said violated its rules “against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
“And like the politically motivated activity we’ve seen, the ‘news’ stories or opinions these accounts and Pages share are often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate,” the Facebook blog post said.
However, a Facebook spokesperson would not specify to CNN Business how many of the 559 pages and 251 accounts removed were either political in nature or using political messaging to drive up clicks and engagement. The spokesperson stressed the company took action “against behavior violations, not content violations.”
The content violations included using fake accounts, artificially inflating engagement, deceptive coordination, and driving people to ad farms, the Facebook spokesperson told CNN Business.
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