

Facebook on Thursday announced the removal of 559 Pages and 251 accounts that it says broke the company's rules against spam and "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

The company said it chose to disclose the removal of these accounts and pages due to the "timing ahead of the U.S. midterm elections."

Facebook said many of the Pages in question were using fake accounts to share links across groups on Facebook. Those accounts would hit the Like button on those links, artificially inflating engagement, the company said in a blog post.

"They post clickbait posts on these Pages to drive people to websites that are entirely separate from Facebook and seem legitimate, but are actually ad farms," the company said. "This activity goes against what people expect on Facebook, and it violates our policies against spam."