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Facebook Moves to Take Down a Spammer Ring

By
Catherine Trautwein
Catherine Trautwein
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By
Catherine Trautwein
Catherine Trautwein
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April 14, 2017, 5:48 PM ET
Social Media Apps And Computer Keyboards
A woman checks the Facebook Inc. site on her smartphone whilst standing against an illuminated wall bearing the Facebook Inc. logo in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2015. Facebook Inc.s WhatsApp messaging service, with more than 100 million local users, is the most-used app in Brazil, according to an Ibope poll published on Dec. 15. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesPhotograph by Chris Ratcliffe — Bloomberg/Getty Images

Facebook moved to take down a ring of spammers it has been fighting for months and that was allegedly set on sending users fake information, the company announced Friday.

Technical program manager Shabnam Shaik wrote in a note on the social media site that Facebook was “disrupting” an operation that consisted of fake likes and comments that may have come from accounts traced to Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and other countries.

Shaik wrote that it looks like the spammers aimed to make Facebook friends, then send them spam, but that many had not gone through with this plan after liking pages.

Shaik also wrote Facebook has erased a significant number of fake likes.

“By disrupting the campaign now, we expect that we will prevent this network of spammers from reaching its end goal of sending inauthentic material to large numbers of people,” Shaik wrote.

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By Catherine Trautwein
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