Facebook removes 115 accounts over possible foreign meddling in midterms

Thirty accounts have been removed from Facebook and 85 have been removed from Instagram for suspicious, coordinated activity in French, English, and Russian, Facebook announced in a blog post. Law enforcement agencies warned Facebook on Sunday about the possible activity by foreign actors seeking to influence Tuesday's midterm elections. Some of the posts concerned celebrities. Others focused on politics.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, said in the blog post that Facebook typically waits until it knows more before making such announcements, but it "wanted to let people know" because it was the eve of the midterms. It was not immediately clear who was behind the activity, but federal law enforcement officials said "foreign actors," particularly Russia, continue to try to influence the public as they did in 2016, USA Today reports.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.