World
A member of Mujahedin-e Khalq walks in a street at the Ashraf-3 camp, which is a base for the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in Manza, March 4, 2020. Photo: Gent Shkullaku/ AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Facebook has removed hundreds of social media accounts they say are run by an exiled Iranian opposition group in Europe.
"We removed a network of over 300 Facebook accounts, Pages, Groups, and accounts on Instagram that appear to be run from a troll farm located in Albania and operated by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK),” reads the company’s monthly report on “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” which constitutes a mediated, collective effort to sway the public will “for a strategic goal.”
“They targeted primarily Iran and also global audiences with content related to Iran. The network violated our policy against foreign interference which is coordinated inauthentic behaviour on behalf of a foreign entity," adds the report released on Tuesday.
Iran considers the MEK a terrorist organization and blames it for thousands of deaths since the group took up arms against Tehran, including the bombing of a gathering of Islamic Revolutionary leaders in 1981 that killed 75 people, among them Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the second-in-command to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The majority of MEK members have taken refuge in Europe and the US, increasingly so after the US toppled the Baath regime in Iraq in 2003, where they had military bases, which the neighboring Iran considered a threat to its own security.
According to the Facebook report, past members have claimed MEK is running a troll farm at the group's compound, Ashraf 3, which hosts some 2,800 exiled Iranians near the Albanian capital of Tirana.
"We removed a network of over 300 Facebook accounts, Pages, Groups, and accounts on Instagram that appear to be run from a troll farm located in Albania and operated by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK),” reads the company’s monthly report on “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” which constitutes a mediated, collective effort to sway the public will “for a strategic goal.”
“They targeted primarily Iran and also global audiences with content related to Iran. The network violated our policy against foreign interference which is coordinated inauthentic behaviour on behalf of a foreign entity," adds the report released on Tuesday.
Iran considers the MEK a terrorist organization and blames it for thousands of deaths since the group took up arms against Tehran, including the bombing of a gathering of Islamic Revolutionary leaders in 1981 that killed 75 people, among them Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the second-in-command to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The majority of MEK members have taken refuge in Europe and the US, increasingly so after the US toppled the Baath regime in Iraq in 2003, where they had military bases, which the neighboring Iran considered a threat to its own security.
According to the Facebook report, past members have claimed MEK is running a troll farm at the group's compound, Ashraf 3, which hosts some 2,800 exiled Iranians near the Albanian capital of Tirana.
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