Facebook removes Iran-linked accounts

Facebook has removed 82 pages, accounts and groups linked to Iran from its service and from Instagram for spreading misinformation.

The company says the accounts were targeting US and UK citizens and typically represented themselves to be American and in some cases British citizens.

The accounts posted about politically charged topics such as race relations, and attacked President Donald Trump.

Facebook said on Friday that a manual review of the accounts linked them to Iran.

Facebook has traditionally relied heavily on automated checks to detect misinformation and other bad behaviour on its service.

The company has already disclosed that it found and removed similar activity originating in Iran in August.

The removals come less than two weeks before the US midterm elections.