Troll farms from Macedonia and the Philippines pushed coronavirus disinformation on Facebook
One of the largest publishers of coronavirus disinformation on Facebook has been banned from the platform for using content farms from Macedonia and the Philippines, Facebook said on Friday.
The publisher, Natural News, was one of the most prolific pushers of the viral “Plandemic” conspiracy video, which falsely claimed that the coronavirus is part of an elaborate government plot to control the populace through vaccines, and erroneously claimed that wearing a mask increases the risk of catching the coronavirus.
Facebook said that it had found foreign trolls repeatedly posted content from Natural News, an anti-vaccination news site that frequently posts false coronavirus conspiracy theories about 5G towers and Bill Gates. They also posted content from Natural News’ sister websites, NewsTarget and Brighteon, in an effort to artificially inflate their reach.
“We removed these Pages for spammy and abusive behavior, not the content they posted. They misled people about the popularity of their posts and relied on content farms in Macedonia and the Philippines,” Facebook said in a statement. [Continue reading…]