Global Contamination: Ahead of European Elections, the Right Sows Hatred via Facebook

(Patria) – The global activist network 'Avaaz' has managed to identify a group of right-wing Facebook profiles that have been spreading fake news and hate speech for months, ahead of the European elections, to millions of people across Europe and the world.

Facebook has already shut down profiles with around 6 million followers, but the damage has been done.

Hundreds of other profiles are under investigation, with a total of 26 million followers, according to Avaaz, which has reported more than 500 suspicious groups and Facebook pages active in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland and Spain.

Most of these groups – profiles – have been spreading disinformation or using fake profiles and pages to artificially boost content related to certain parties they support, which is against Facebook's rules, writes the British Guardian.

The global activist network Avaaz estimates that these networks are far more popular than the official pages of right-wing and anti-EU populist groups in those countries. The pages that Facebook has shut down have already been viewed more than 500 million times.

In Italy, for example, the tactic of right-wing Facebook profiles is to attract followers with content from sports, beauty and other 'lifestyle' topics, and then, after a new follower signs up, change the content to political.

Some German pages support Holocaust denial and promote the right-wing AfD party.

The investigation organized by Avaaz was not conducted in cooperation with the Facebook network, which makes it independent, but the results were forwarded to Facebook so it could take action.

Avaaz representatives believe that Facebook has taken significant steps so far, but that they should have spotted such pages themselves and much earlier. 'There are 30 of us, and their security team alone has over 30,000 people,' say Avaaz, as reported by agencies.