Facebook takes down accounts run from China posting about 2020 US election

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Facebook on Tuesday said, it had shut down more than 150 fake accounts it determined were run from China including accounts posting about November's US presidential election. The scale of the operation was small, but it is the first time the company has made public details about an operation it found to be run from China that had been posting about the US election. The accounts posted content both in support of and against presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

According to an announcement from Facebook on Tuesday, the social media company took down a network based out of China (and another in the Philippines). The networks were removed for breaking Facebook’s policies on Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior. They used fake accounts in order to boost engagement and manage the network, which is against Facebook’s rules.

In all, 155 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook Pages, 9 Facebook Groups, and 6 Instagram accounts from China were removed. Around 133,000 users followed one or more of the Pages in the network and about 61,000 users joined one or more of the Groups. It’s important to note that Facebook was unable to determine any connection between these accounts, Pages, and Groups and the Chinese government.

This was obviously a very small network. But, as the Washington Post points out, it marks the first time Facebook has removed a China based influence campaign from its network that targeted the U.S.