Facebook Removes Pro-Trump Accounts Operating In Romania

Facebook Inc said on Thursday, Aug 6, that it has recently removed a small network of pro-Trump accounts operating from Romania.

According to Facebook, the network that now has been removed was actively involved in the promotion of President Donald Trump's re-election campaign and used to post stories about POTUS’s support from the Black Americans, Christians and conservatives.

The accounts removed by Facebook include 35 Facebook and 88 Instagram accounts. Some of these accounts even managed Trump fan pages. However, they did not follow the social network's rule concerning coordinated inauthentic behavior.

Facebook described how the accounts deceived people about their location and some of these account owners ran multiple accounts, which were being used to post identical content.

The network, however, had a small number of followers only. The Facebook account was being followed by only 1600 accounts and Instagram accounts had a reach of about 7200 followers.

Facebook is unable to confirm what exactly dictated or motivated the Romanian group to post pro-Trump content – whether it was money, government directive or some ideology.

The social media giant also announced that it is banning ads from The Committee to Defend the President.

"As a result of the Committee to Defend the President's repeated sharing of content determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false, they will not be permitted to advertise for a period of time on our platform," Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said, without mentioning what actually led them to make this decision.

The Committee to Defend the President is known to have spent more than $300,000 on Facebook ads since 2018. It has more than 1 million followers on Facebook.

During the announcement, Stone read out a part of the Facebook policy that reads, "taking action against repeat offenders: Pages and websites that repeatedly share false news will have some restrictions, including having their distribution reduced. They may also have their ability to monetize and advertise removed, and their ability to register as a news Page removed."