Yahoo Finance Facebook bans Trump ally Roger Stone for 'ties to fake account network'
Facebook has removed the personal accounts of Donald Trump's former adviser Roger Stone, claiming they were linked to a network of fake accounts during the 2016 presidential election.
In its monthly report on inauthentic and coordinated activity, the social network claimed that Mr Stone and his associates had been linked to a network with ties to Proud Boys, a group that promotes white supremacy. Facebook banned Proud Boys in 2018.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s cybersecurity chief, said: “We first started looking into this network as part of our investigation into the Proud Boys’ attempt to return to Facebook after we had designated and banned them from the platform.
“Our investigation linked this network to Roger Stone and his associates.”
Facebook said that the alleged fake accounts, which were used to make pages look more popular, were most active between 2015 and 2017.
Account owners posted about local politics in Florida, Roger Stone himself, the hacked materials released by Wikileaks ahead of the 2016 election (including Hillary Clinton’s emails) and, later, the Roger Stone trial.
Mr Stone, a longtime friend of Mr Trump, strongly denied any links to fake accounts or a white supremacist network, telling a New York Times reporter that “claims that I have utilised or control unauthorised accounts on any platform is categorically and provably false”.
He also denied any connection to Proud Boys. He added that the ban was "part of a larger effort to censor supporters of the president, Republicans and conservatives on social media platforms".
The 67-year-old was sentenced to 40 months prison in March, after he was found guilty last year of lying to Congress over his contact with the website Wikileaks.
The Republican political consultant, who worked on the US president's 2016 campaign, was found guilty by a jury of all seven charges in the case which included lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction.
He is the sixth of Trump’s inner campaign circle to be convicted after Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion during the run-up to the election.
Mr Stone was banned from Twitter in 2017 after an expletive-laden tirade against several CNN reporters who were covering the announcement of his trial. In one tweet he said that Don Lemon, the host of CNN Tonight, “must be confronted, humiliated, mocked and punished”.
Facebook said it began looking into the accounts as part of a wider investigation into the Proud Boys' attempt to return to the platform. It found 54 Facebook accounts, 50 pages and four Instagram accounts with more than 300,000 followers. The accounts paid $308,000 for adverts on Facebook and Instagram.
