Facebook takes down alleged Muslim Brotherhood accounts sharing 'inauthentic' information

Facebook has taken down a network of fake accounts operating across the Middle East and North Africa that were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, the social media network said on Friday. 

The pages operated from Egypt, Turkey and Morocco, targeted audiences both domestically and abroad, and shared "terrorism-related content", according to Facebook.

The Muslim Brotherhood-connected accounts were included in Facebook's monthly report into "coordinated inauthentic behaviour". Facebook said that it removed nearly 8,000 pages involved in disseminating misinformation on the platform in October. It also took down at least seven separate networks of fake accounts and pages that were active in Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Myanmar, Georgia and Ukraine.  

Many of the networks taken down by Facebook were involved in deceptive political influence campaigns, using fake accounts to target audiences domestically and abroad.

Facebook found two "inauthentic" networks in Georgia spreading political content, one of which it traced to individuals associated with two political parties.

In Ukraine and Myanmar, Facebook found that public relations firms were running similar deceptive campaigns on behalf of political parties.

The social media giant has been cracking down on such accounts globally, after it was criticised for not developing tools quickly enough to combat extremist content and propaganda operations.