Facebook has removed hundreds of Russian accounts and pages that came from Russia’s ‘troll factory’, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), and the closely linked Federal News Agency (FAN).

70 Facebook accounts, 65 Instagram accounts, and 138 Facebook pages were all purged by the social network, along with any associated ads.

According to Facebook, 95 per cent of the pages were in Russian and targeted either people living in Russia or Russian speakers in countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.

“The IRA has repeatedly used complex networks of inauthentic accounts to deceive and manipulate people who use Facebook, including before, during and after the 2016 US presidential elections. It’s why we don’t want them on Facebook,” said Alex Stamos, chief security officer at Facebook, in a post.

“We removed this latest set of Pages and accounts solely because they were controlled by the IRA — not based on the content. This included commentary on domestic and international political issues, the promotion of Russian culture and tourism as well as debate on more everyday issues.”