Facebook removes accounts involved in political influence campaign ahead of US mid-term polls

Facebook has removed 32 fake accounts and pages that it says were involved in "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" and political influence campaign to manipulate voters ahead of the November mid-term elections in the US.

Though the world's biggest social media network has not yet attributed the accounts to any group, it says the campaign does bear some resemblance to the propaganda campaign allegedly run by Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election.

Facebook has been grappling with continuing public backlash for being slow to recognise Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, along with widespread concerns over its past data-sharing practices. The company's stock has plunged more than 20 per cent since last week, after it reported slower user growth and rising costs for security and safety programs to crack down on abuse of its platform.

"This kind of behaviour is not allowed on Facebook because we don't want people or organisations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they're doing," it said.

Noting that Facebook is still in the very early stages of its investigation and does not have all the facts - including who may be behind this, the company executives warned that they were dealing with increasingly sophisticated political operatives, who are finding new ways to abuse Facebook's platforms.

"We've made it harder for inauthentic actors to operate on Facebook," said Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. "Yet we face determined, well-funded adversaries who won't give up and who are constantly changing tactics."