Facebook suspended five accounts linked to Democratic operatives who engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” in a bid to steer votes away from Alabama Republican Roy Moore during last year’s special Senate election.
The announcement comes following a New York Times report last week that exposed the scheme, in which the users created a Facebook page and imitated conservative Alabamians who weren’t satisfied with the Republican candidate while encouraging others to write in another candidate. Moore, whose campaign ultimately was clouded by allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls while he was in his 30s, ended up losing the race to Democrat Doug Jones.
“We’ve recently removed five accounts run by multiple individuals for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook around the Alabama special election, and our investigation is ongoing,” Facebook said in a statement. “We take a strong stand against people or organizations that create networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are or what they’re doing.”
The scheme also involved creating thousands of fake Russian accounts on Twitter that began following Moore. This effort attracted attention from local and national media, falsely suggesting Russia was backing Moore’s candidacy.
“Russian invasion? Roy Moore sees spike in Twitter followers from land of Putin,” read the headline of an article at The Montgomery Advertiser, just months before the election night. Other outlets shortly picked up the story. – READ MORE