Facebook removes profiles it believes belong to Russian intelligence

It's believed the removed profiles were created by a Russian group to interfere in the 2016 US elections

Facebook has removed a number of controversial profiles from its site, suspecting that political foul play was the purpose of their creation. Leaders behind the social network giant met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this morning to discuss the removal of such profiles, believed to be set up by a group of Russians set to sway the US presidential election in 2016. Suspicious activity regarding Facebook in particular and social media as a whole's participation in the election which saw Donald Trump elected as the 45th POTUS has shrouded talk of the election since Trump's inauguration in January 2017. According to CNN, it's understood that 30 pages advocating US political stances have been removed – one of which promoted a counter-demonstration to a planned "Unite the Right" event, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the march in Charlottesville in which a woman was killed. In a statement, Facebook said that it first discovered the accounts — which included eight Facebook pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and seven Instagram accounts — a fortnight ago. The company has been working with the F.B.I. to investigate the activity. Facebook announced at the hearing that it does not yet know who exactly is behind these accounts, but they have found evidence of links between them.