Facebook said Tuesday that it removed a small network of accounts and pages linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency, the "troll factory" that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in the US since the 2016 presidential election.
Twitter also suspended five related accounts. The company said the tweets from these Russia-linked accounts "were low quality and spammy" and that most received few, if any, likes or retweets.
The people behind the accounts recruited "unwitting" freelance journalists to post in English and Arabic, mainly targeting left-leaning audiences. Facebook said Tuesday the network's activity focused on the US, UK, Algeria and Egypt and other English-speaking countries and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
