Facebook Suspends Pages Backed By The Russian Government

Dhir Acharya - Feb 19, 2019

Besides the suspension, Facebook intends to contact the people behind these pages and required them to disclose their affiliations to get their pages back.

According to reports, Facebook has suspended three famous video pages on its platform created against millennials after it found that the Russian government was behind those pages. The suspension took place on Friday, reported by CNN.

The report also revealed that Maffick Media runs all these three pages; notably, Ruptly – a subsidiary of Russia-backed RT, is its major stakeholder. Besides suspending the pages, Facebook intends to contact the people who run these pages and required them to inform about their affiliations as a condition to get their pages back.

The pages’ main focus are current events, the environment, and history. Since September, they have been viewed over 30 million times.

Usually, the social network doesn’t ask for information about parent companies from users, so this move is a bit intriguing. However, since Facebook is currently aggressive in identifying undercover government-supported data on its platform.

Holding a population of over 2 billion, Facebook is pushed to limit disinformation, inauthentic behavior, and hate speech on its network. Back in 2017, the tech giant found evidence proving Russian’s use of its platform to meddle in the 2016 presidential election of the US as well as spread discord among US citizens. Facebook has since removed hundreds of accounts, that includes several related to Iran’s campaigns.

The social giant said users should not be deceived about who runs the pages they follow.

As stated by a spokesman from Facebook, the company is continuously improving its operation so that users can have a better understanding of the pages they follow. For instance, the company is working to update Pages with mass followers to provide information about the countries behind those pages.

In response, on Sunday, Maffick Media denied violating Facebook’s rules. The company said its content has nothing to do with fake news or disinformation, according to its website statement.

Disinformation has been included in the foreign policy strategy of Russia for a long time, and the country has successfully taken advantage of social media to benefit its trolling efforts on a viral scale. Intelligence agencies in the US have given warnings to Congress that campaigns like this will take place more in the future.