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Russia Says Facebook Removing A Russian Agency's Pages Is 'Censorship'

Katie Cammarata , Austin Kim

2:01 PM, Apr 5, 2018

2:04 PM, Apr 5, 2018

Photo Credit: Office of the Russian President

The Russian government called Facebook's removal of accounts, pages and ads from the Internet Research Agency "censorship."

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told news outlets Thursday the move is hostile toward Russian mass media and that the government finds it regretful.

Facebook announced Tuesday it removed 138 Facebook pages and 70 accounts linked to the IRA — the organization that meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Facebook also removed 65 Instagram accounts.

The social media giant said it removed the pages because they were operated by the IRA and that the IRA has lied about its identity when creating accounts in the past.

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