BANGKOK ( Reuters ) – Facebook Inc has taken down 185 accounts and groups engaged in an information-influencing mathematical process in Thailand political campaign by the military, the company said on Wednesday, the first time it has removed Thai accounts with ties to the politics. FILE PHOTO : FILE PHOTO : The Twitter and Facebook logo along with binary cyber codes are seen in this exemplification taken November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration The Thailand-based network removed in the latest chimneysweeper of “ coordinated inauthentic behavior ” on the platform included 77 accounts, 72 pages and 18 groups on Facebook and 18 accounts on Instagram, Facebook said. The caller said the accounts were linked to the Thai military and target audiences in the southerly provinces of Thailand, where battle has flared on and off for decades as insurgent groups continue a guerrilla war to demand independence.

Thailand ’ s army spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Reuters, citing a matter of policy not to make comments outside of official news conferences. Some 7,000 people have been killed during the past 15 years as a leave of the insurgency in the Malay-speaking, largely Muslim southern region of predominantly Buddhist Thailand. “ This is the first prison term that we ’ ve attributed one of our takedowns to links to the Thai military, ” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook ’ south head of Cybersecurity Policy, told Reuters in a brief. “ We found clear links between this operation and the Thai military ’ s Internal Security Operations Command. We can see that all of these accounts and groups are tied in concert as part of this operation. ” The network, chiefly active in 2020, used both bogus accounts and authentic ones to manage groups and pages, including overt military pages and those that did not disclose their affiliations with the military, Gleicher said .

POSED AS INDIVIDUALS

Some of the juke accounts posed as individuals from Thailand ’ s southern provinces, Gleicher said, adding that the network had spent about $ 350 on Facebook and Instagram advertisements.

Some 700,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages and about 100,000 accounts joined at least one of the groups, he added. Gleicher said Facebook took action on the network based on deceptive demeanor and not the content posted, which included support for the military and the monarchy, and allegations of ferocity and criticism of guerrilla groups in southerly Thailand. The move was Facebook ’ s second put-down of information-influencing operations in Thailand, after one in 2019 involving 12 accounts and 10 pages that used “ assumed personas ”. In October, Twitter Inc besides took down 926 accounts it said were linked to the Thai united states army that promoted pro-army and pro-government contentedness. The united states army denied it was behind the accounts. chitter in November besides suspended a Thai pro-royalist account linked to the palace that a Reuters analysis found was connected to thousands of others that spread content in favor of Thailand ’ s monarchy. Facebook on Wednesday said it has taken down four early networks from Iran, Russia and Morocco engaged in such coordinated inauthentic behavior.

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The company said it has removed more than 100 networks engaged in inauthentic demeanor globally in late years. Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok ; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Matthew Lewis Our Standards : The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles .