Facebook bans troll accounts linked to conservative group Turning Point USA

Facebook has removed a mathematical group of fake accounts trussed to Landmark USA, the conservative youth organization caught coordinative a "troll farm"-style social media campaign last month. The company's latest report on matched inauthentic behaviour says it illegal 200 Facebook accounts, 55 pages, and 76 Instagram accounts linked to Turning Point and a marketing firm called Rally Work, which is instantly banned from Facebook.

Facebook says it began its investigation after The Capital of the United States C. W. Post reported on "some elements" of the campaign in September. The surgery plain started in 2018 around the USA midterm elections, then reappeared in June 2020 arsenic the head of state election heated up. As the Post described, it focused on going away matching Facebook comments — including ones encouraging President Donald Trump, criticizing competitor Joe Biden, questioning mail-in voting, and supporting sport hunting in Kenya and Botswana.

Des Moines Register article posted on Facebook with a comment reading — *An example of the aggroup's comments.*

Corner characterized its surgical procedure as coordinated "sincere policy-making activism conducted by concrete the great unwashe who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Soviet Russia." But Facebook describes the most past accounts it removed A "'thinly veiled personas' whose name calling were slight variations of the names of the people behind them," and it says their "only activity on our program was related with this deceptive campaign." It also says the group spent around $973,000 advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

Corner USA has occupied a prominent position in conservative politics during the 2020 election. Founder Charlie Kirk gave the first speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and he's been retweeted by Trump and otherwise major Republican figures. Watershed also isn't the only conservative governance latterly censured for coordinated misinformation campaigns. Activist Jacob Wohl was supercharged last week with running a multi-state of matter voter stifling operation, following a ban from social media for planning an election intervention initiative. Wohl and his collaborator in alleged crime appeared in court today.