Facebook announced two days ago that it had found some irregular accounts on its platform mimicking the same behaviour as the accounts that tried to influence US elections in 2016. The company doesn't know exactly where the accounts are from but says the activity is similar to those of known Russian state funded hacker groups.
In the investigation the company discovered 17 Facebook profiles, seven Instagram accounts, and eight Facebook pages, that have all been removed. These accounts all coordinated political influence on these two platforms. Approximately over 290 000 people followed at least one of the pages above. The pages created more than 9 500 organic posts, 30 future-dated events, and ran 150 ads, which cost roughly $11 000, paid for in Canadian and U.S. Dollars.
Facebook management seems to be learning from recent history with regards to the important role the company as plays in society, given the general demise of newspapers. By taking action to clear out these accounts, Facebook is choosing the long-term good over short-term profits. I suppose that foreign country intelligence agents should stay at home?