Facebook has shut down a disinformation network of 32 accounts and pages which were putting out divisive messaging ahead of the upcoming US mid-term elections in November. Facebook said the accounts stands suspended for "coordinated inauthentic behavior". These accounts were created between March 2017 and May 2018, and lured 290,000 people with ads on topics such as racism, feminism, colonialism, and visible anti-Trump messaging. The accounts ran about 150 ads for approximately $11,000 on Facebook and Instagram, paid for in US and Canadian dollars. The last ad was created just two months ago in June. The company says it does not have firm evidence of who has carried out this disinformation campaign, but it discovered that one of these accounts was associated an account of Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) which Facebook disabled last year. Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy said "some of the activity was consistent" with Russian group IRA to interfere in 2016 US Presidential Elections. IRA is a Kremlin-backed organization of Russian operatives that flooded Facebook with disinformation around the 2016 election. The most followed Facebook Pages were “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” “Mindful Being,” and “Resisters.” The remaining Pages had between zero and 10 followers, and the Instagram accounts had zero followers. The most popular page had 18,000 followers — and the least popular, 16 followers. One of the pages "Resisters" created an event called "No Unite the Right 2 – DC" scheduled for August in Washington DC. “Resisters,” briefly had a co-administrator — for seven…
