Most of them, 1,907, were Russia-linked accounts either posting spam or (to a lesser degree) touching on Ukranian politics, including Russia's annexation of Crimea. The 512 Iranian accounts, groups and pages frequently rehashed Iranian state media and stoked tensions in the Middle East. The remaining 212 accounts and pages from Macedonia and Kosovo falsely represented "political communities" in Australia, the UK and the US.

The reach was sometimes significant. About 1.7 million people joined one or more of the Russia-linked groups, while roughly 1.4 million accounts followed one or more of the Iranian pages.

As in the past, Facebook knows this is far from the end to this kind of behavior. It needs improved automation, human moderators and cooperation with outsiders (such as police and security experts) to help stamp out dodgy accounts. The larger-than-usual scale of the takedowns suggests the company might be on track, though, even if it has a long way to go.