Facebook has identified ongoing political influence campaign: NYT

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc has identified a coordinated political influence campaign through dozens of inauthentic accounts on its platform ahead of November’s U.S. midterm election, the New York Times reported separately on Tuesday.

The company said on Tuesday it had removed 32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior”.

“This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we don’t want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing,” the company said in a blogpost.

“We’re still in the very early stages of our investigation and don’t have all the facts — including who may be behind this,” Facebook said.

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The company told lawmakers this week that it detected the campaign as part of its investigations into election interference, the Times reported.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)