Facebook removes 115 accounts ahead of US election

Facebook has blocked 115 suspicious accounts on the eve of the US midterm elections. It concerns thirty Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram accounts.

The social networking site says it was informed on Sunday by US intelligence and security services of possible online activities by foreign entities. It is suspected that those groups want to influence the midterms, the midterm parliamentary elections to be held in the US on Tuesday. “They can do this by spreading false information about political processes and candidates, by lying about their own interference, through propaganda and other tactics,” the security services said in a joint statement.

Facebook took no risk and immediately proceeded to block the suspicious accounts. Nearly all of the deleted Facebook accounts were of Russian or French origin, according to the Financial Times, while the Instagram accounts were in English.

In recent months, Facebook and Twitter have previously removed a number of accounts suspected of being fake. In America, investigations are still ongoing into suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, where Trump emerged as the winner. Even then, fake accounts would have been used to mislead American voters.