Facebook targets 30,000 fake France accounts before election

Paris: Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country's presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation.

The company said yesterday it's trying to "reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts."

It said its efforts "enabled us to take action" against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic.

Facebook and French media are also running fact-checking programmes in France to combat misleading information, especially around the campaign for the two-round April 23-May 7 presidential election.

European authorities have also pressured Facebook and Twitter to remove extremist propaganda or other postings that violate European hate speech or other laws.