Facebook has deleted thousands of UK accounts and overhauled its news feed in an attempt to battle fake news, following vocal criticism of the internet giant’s role in the phenomenon.

The social network has been under pressure to address “false news” in recent months, following concerns about its impact on elections in the US and Europe and fears that it could undermine advertisers’ confidence in Facebook.

On Monday, Facebook will announced a new drive to tackle fake news in the UK, just a month before Brits go to the polls. It says it has introduced technology to better identify accounts that spread spam or fake news, such as detecting patterns of those that repeatedly post the same things, and deleted “tens of thousands” in response.