People connected to the government of Saudi Arabia have run a network of fake accounts and pages on Facebook Inc (FB.O) to promote state propaganda and attack regional rivals, the social media giant said on Thursday.
Facebook said it had suspended more than 350 accounts and pages with about 1.4 million followers, the latest takedown in an ongoing effort to combat “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platform, and the first such activity it has linked to the Saudi government.
“The government of Saudi Arabia has no knowledge of the mentioned accounts and does not know on what basis they were linked to it,” the Center for International Communication, the government’s media office, said in a statement sent to Reuters.
