Facebook says it removed hundreds of fake accounts and pages that were misleading to users, including accounts that used AI to create fake profile pictures.
Researchers who studied the accounts say that it’s the first time they’ve seen AI-generated pictures on such a large scale.
The social media giant also took down fake accounts on Instagram. In total, it shut down 610 Facebook accounts, along with 89 pages and 156 groups. Facebook also shut down 72 Instagram accounts. Around 55 million accounts followed at least on these pages.
“We’re constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity. We don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Facebook said in a blog post.
Facebook said it removed the accounts because they engaged in foreign inference and displayed coordinated inauthentic behaviour. This means that the people who were behind the accounts were misleading others about their identities and what they were doing.
“In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action,” Facebook said.
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