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Facebook has apologised for mentioning Kashmir wrongly in its blog post of earlier this week which details the steps taken by the company to remove coordinated inauthentic behavior from Iran, Russia, Macedonia, and Kosovo.
“We mistakenly included ‘Kashmir’ in our blog post when listing the countries and regions impacted by the Iranian network we disrupted for coordinated inauthentic behavior,” Facebook said in an email statement.
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“Kashmir was the subject of some of the content shared by this network, but it should not have been included in that list. We have corrected this in the blog post and we apologise for any confusion caused,” it added.
In a bid to weed out fake accounts, Facebook says it removed a total of 513 Pages, Groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. The accounts, according to the company, were part of multiple networks tied to Iran.
Meanwhile, Facebook has also updated its post to reflect that Kashmir was incorrectly mentioned in the list of regions targeted by the Iranian network.
Facebook, which is under scrutiny for privacy-related issues, has accelerated its efforts of cracking down on fake accounts and spread of misinformation. Last year, it was reported that Facebook tools were used to sway US voters with false news posts before and after the 2016 election.
In India, ahead of general elections that start from April 11, Facebook has partnered with media organisations to check and flag false stories in regional languages as well. To reduce the spread of false information, it will also block fake accounts and employ third-party fact-checking organisations.
