Facebook has banned about 200 social media accounts for promoting white supremacy and hate. The accounts had encouraged and were rallying members to attend black lives matter protests, in many cases with weapons according to AP.
The accounts allegedly had ties to two prominent hate accounts the Social media site had already banned. Both accounts, Proud Boys and American Guard, had previously been banned from Facebook for violating rules prohibiting hate speech. Facebook also says it will continue to remove new pages, groups, or accounts created to circumvent the ban.
“We saw that these groups were planning to rally supporters and members to physically go to the protests and in some cases were preparing to go with weapons,” said Brian Fishman, Facebook’s director of counterterrorism and dangerous organizations policy.
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Facebook did not reveal details like their plans for the protests or addresses of the accounts it banned. It, however, says “approximately” 190 accounts were banned overall. The site also announced the removal of a “handful” of other accounts that were posing as members of the far-left Antifa movement.
In a separate action, Facebook had also deactivated another 102 fake Instagram and Facebook accounts. The accounts were impersonating local politicians and news organisations in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. The company’s officials link these fake accounts to Kurdish intelligence services.
In addition, it deleted hundreds of fake Instagram and Facebook accounts created in Tunisia. The accounts were created in an alleged effort to influence elections in Tunisia and other African french-speaking countries.
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