Indonesian police uncovered the existence of the group, called Saracen, in 2016 and arrested three of its members on suspicion of being part of a syndicate being paid to spread incendiary material online through social media. “These accounts and pages were actively working to conceal what they were doing and were linked to the Saracen Group, an online syndicate in Indonesia,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of Cybersecurity Policy, said on Friday. Gleicher said the pages and accounts deleted had reached 170,000 people on Facebook and more than 65,000 on Instagram. Indonesia’s police cyber crime unit has previously told Reuters that Saracen was posting material involving religious and ethnic issues, as well as fake news and posts that defamed government officials. The country is currently in the run-up to a presidential election set to take place in April.

Source: bd News24 February 01, 2019 03:56 UTC