Facebook removes fake profiles linked to conservative group

Facebook has disabled around 276 accounts that used fake identifies to pose as right-leaning audience and comment on news articles, often in support of President Donald Trump, the company announced on Thursday.

The social network also permanently banned an Arizona-based digital marketing firm that it said was behind the fake accounts.

The action was triggered after The Washington Post reported last month that a pro-Trump group identified as Turning Point Action was recruiting teenagers to post coordinated, supportive messages, a violation of Facebook’s policies.

Twitter and Facebook both have been continuously deleting fake accounts “both domestic and foreign” that attempt to put themselves in the US political discussion and influence the election. But social media networks face major threats around disinformation and voter suppression that at times come from President Trump himself.

The latest network Facebook dismantled became active before the 2018 midterm elections and went inactive until June, when the group started posting on topics including the coronavirus infection, criticism of the Democratic Party and politicians, current presidential candidate Joe Biden, as well as praise for Trump and other Republicans.

As an example, Facebook cited one of the similar posts – “So sick of democrats continuing to make republicans look bad! It makes me tired of politics and I just believe Republicans are much more humble when it comes to money because Democrats will do anything to screw over Americans.”

Those running these accounts used stock images to create fake profiles, many of which were removed by Facebook’s automated detection software. Facebook found that the accounts were being arranged by Rally Forge, an Arizona-based firm.

“Although the people behind this network tried to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation linked this activity to Rally Forge,” Facebook said.

While Facebook’s statement cited Rally Forge’s work for Turning Point USA, the work was actually done on behalf of Turning Point Action, an independent political action committee, as per the organization.

Turning Point Action added that it will work with Facebook “to correct any misunderstanding” about its content.

Turning Point Action was founded last year by vocal trump supporter Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based non-profit organization that hires college students to advocate for conservative actions.

The group shares memes, videos, and other content on its social media accounts that support Trump and other conservative politicians. President Trump and also his son Donald Trump Jr have given speeches at Turning Point USA or Turning Point Action events, most recently during a June campaign rally in Phoenix.

Messages left with Rally Forge and Turning Point USA were not immediately returned Thursday.

Total 200 Facebook accounts, 55 pages and 76 Instagram accounts were deleted. Facebook said the network had more than 22,000 followers on Instagram, and 370,000 on Facebook. Facebook said most of the fake accounts had acted as conservatives and some pretended to be left-leaning in 2018.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Twitter said that it had disabled 104 accounts linked to an Iranian attempt to artificially escalate debates over the death of George Floyd and racial justice in the United States. The company said that in some cases, the accounts had been hijacked from their actual owners.

“In cases where we identify that an account has been compromised … we aim to restore the account to the original account holder”, Twitter said in a statement. “We were able to do so successfully in most cases here.”