Facebook, Twitter Remove Hundreds of Pages Tied to Iran

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Facebook has removed more than 650 pages and accounts for inauthentic behavior that could be linked to Iran, the social media giant said in a statement. Twitter also announced the deletion of 284 accounts, many of which, according to the platform, originated from Iran.

"We’ve removed 652 pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and US," the release said on Tuesday.

In a separate move, Facebook also announced the removal of pages that, according to the US government, might be linked to Russian intelligence. "Finally, we’ve removed pages, groups and accounts that can be linked to sources the US government has previously identified as Russian military intelligence services. This is unrelated to the activities we found in Iran," the social media giant said.

Another social media titan Twitter also removed more than 280 accounts for coordinated manipulation including a number that originated from Iran, according to the social media company's statement.

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"Working with our industry peers today, we have suspended 284 accounts from Twitter for engaging in coordinated manipulation," the release said on Tuesday. "Based on our existing analysis, it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran."