Facebook says took down 1.3 billion fake accounts in October-December

[March 22, 2021]   (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Monday it took down 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December and that it had over 35,000 people working on tackling misinformation on its platform.

The company also removed more than 12 million pieces of content about COVID-19 and vaccines that global health experts flagged as misinformation, it said in a blog post.

False claims and conspiracies about the coronavirus vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter during the pandemic.

Facebook's disclosure of data on misinformation comes ahead of an inspection by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce into how technology platforms including Facebook are tackling misinformation.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Anil D'Silva)

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