Facebook Shuts Down Accounts Trying To Influence Midterm US Elections

San Francisco: Facebook said Tuesday it shut down more than 30 fake pages and accounts involved in what appeared to be a "coordinated" effort to stoke hot-button social issues ahead of November midterm US elections, but cannot identify the source despite hints Russia was involved.

It said the "bad actor" accounts on the world's biggest social network and its photo-sharing site Instagram could not be tied to Russian actors, who US officials say used the platform to spread disinformation ahead of the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

But the tech giant did say "some of the activity is consistent" with that of the Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) -- the Russian troll farm that managed many false Facebook accounts used to influence the 2016 vote.

Read: Facebook Shuts Down Three of Its Apps

"We have found evidence of connections between these accounts and previously identified IRA accounts, but we don't believe the evidence is strong enough at this time to make public attribution to the IRA," Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos said during a conference call with reporters.

"We can't say for sure if this is the IRA with improved capabilities or a different organization."

The investigation is at an early stage, revealed now because one of the pages being covertly operated was orchestrating a real-world counter-protest to a "Unite the Right" event in Washington, DC, on August 10.

Facebook is sharing information about the pages and accounts with intelligence officials, and planned to notify members of the social network who expressed interest in attending the counter-protest.

Facebook said it is shutting down 32 pages and accounts "engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior" even though it may never be known for certain what group or country was behind them.

"Attribution is not necessary for us to find and stop this behavior," Stamos said. (PTI)