Twitter and Facebook remove accounts in Bangladesh for manipulation

Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. removed a small number of accounts in Bangladesh after an initial investigation suggested they had undisclosed links to state-sponsored actors.

Twitter suspended a total of 15 accounts while Facebook removed nine pages and six accounts, the US social media giants said in separate statements. Twitter said its investigation was ongoing.

Social media companies have come under increasing pressure to regulate abuse of their services. Facebook said in a blog post the pages in Bangladesh were designed to look like independent news outlets and posted pro-government and anti-opposition content.

"Our investigation indicates that this activity is linked to individuals associated with the Bangladesh government," Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cyber-security policy, said. "This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook under our misrepresentation policy because we don’t want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing."