The world’s biggest social network said it removed 783 pages, groups and accounts “for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior tied to Iran.”

The pages were part of a campaign to promote Iranian interests in various countries by creating fake Facebook or Instagram identities as residents of those nations, according to a statement by Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook.

“We can prove that this is content emanating from Iran; controlled by actors in Iran, and most of the content is reposted from Iran state media,” Gleicher said during a press briefing.

“But, we are not in position to directly assert who the actor is in this case.”

The announcement was the latest by Facebook as it seeks to stamp out efforts by state actors and others to manipulate the social network using fraudulent accounts.

“We are constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Gleicher said.

“In this case, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.”

The operators “typically represented themselves as locals, often using fake accounts, and posted news stories on current events,” including “commentary that repurposed Iranian state media’s reporting on topics like Israel-Palestine relations and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen,” Gleicher said.

– Twitter in the wings –

Facebook’s team looked for additional activity related to a large taken-down of Iran-linked content in August of last year, and collaborated with Twitter which provided insights from the one-to-many messaging platform, according to Gleicher.

“This is an encouraging example of the kind of collaboration we are working to build across the industry,” Gleicher said.

The operation dating back to as early as 2010 had 262 pages, 356 accounts, and three groups on Facebook, as well as 162 accounts on Instagram and were followed by about two million users.

About two million users followed at least one of these pages, about 1,600 accounts joined at least one of these groups.

More than 254,000 accounts followed at least one of these Instagram accounts.

Less than $30,000 was spent in total by the accounts on Facebook or Instagram ads, paid for mostly in US dollars, British pounds, and euros, according to the social network.

Facebook said the fake accounts were part of an influence campaign that operated in Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, US, and Yemen.

Facebook began looking into these kinds of activities after revelations of Russian influence campaigns during the 2016 US election, aimed at sowing discord.

Twitter meanwhile released a report on its efforts to curb manipulation during the 2018 US elections, noting that it blocked accounts originating in Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

© Agence France-Presse

Featured Photo: “Facebook is blocked or restricted in a handful of countries including China and North Korea (AFP Photo/Lionel BONAVENTURE).”

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said he expects the company to stay profitable from this point forward, and appeared to calm fears about his behavior, company debt, and snags ramping up production line efficiency.

Musk said he expected Tesla to make even more Model 3 vehicles in the current quarter, and to begin delivering the cars in Europe and China early next year.

“I am incredibly excited about what lies ahead,” Musk said in an earnings call with analysts.

Tesla said net income reached $311.5 million on revenue that more than doubled year-on-year to $6.8 billion in the quarter that ended September 30.

The earnings beat Wall Street expectations that Tesla would take in less money in the quarter and log another loss.

Shares in the company leapt 9.8 percent to $316.80 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures for its fiscal third quarter.

AFP / SAUL LOEB. Shares in electric car maker Tesla leapt in after-market trades following the company’s quarterly earnings report.

For the same period a year ago the company reported a loss of $619 million.

“Q3 2018 was a truly historic quarter for Tesla,” said the flamboyant Musk, who also heads SpaceX.

“Model 3 was the best-selling car in the US in terms of revenue and the 5th best-selling car in terms of volume.”

Tesla’s assembly line produced an average of 4,300 cars weekly in the quarter, nearing a goal set a while back by Musk.

Tesla has also improved efficiency, ramping up the gross margin on Model 3 vehicles to more than 20 percent, according to Musk.

He expressed confidence that Tesla would remain profitable, despite using cash to pay off notes.

– Trading up big –

“Model 3 is attracting customers of both premium and non-premium brands, making it a truly mainstream product,” Musk said, adding that the company’s “earnings profile has flipped dramatically.”

The vast majority of cars traded in by Model 3 buyers are non-premium models priced new at less than $35,000.

“For many people, it is the most expensive car they ever bought,” Musk said.

“They are demonstrating they are willing to spend more money for a Tesla.”

Model 3 cars start about $50,000, despite a Tesla goal of making an electric car priced for the masses. Musk said his aim is to get the Model 3 price down to $35,000, with production cost of less than $30,000.

“That is our goal, and that is what we are pushing very hard to achieve.”

– Ride-share rival –

Tesla is also hard at work on a computer chip that will dramatically increase self-driving capabilities in its cars.

Musk envisioned a day when Tesla owners would be able to make their autonomous cars part of a ride-sharing fleet run by the company.

“I know for sure Tesla will operate its own ride-hailing service,” Musk said.

“It will compete directly with Uber and Lyft obviously, and have ability for customers to add or subtract cars to the fleet at will.”

Tesla would likely take a percentage of revenue brought in by people’s cars in the ride-share fleet, according to Musk.

He assured analysts that Tesla was not starving new vehicle development to feed profitability.

Tesla has made significant progress on a Model Y, with a prototype set for production, and is continuing to develop an electric semi truck as well as a new roadster model, according to Musk.

Tesla executives expect to begin delivering Model 3 cars in Europe in the first quarter of next year, and in China by the second quarter.

Production will initially take place in California, but Tesla is “moving rapidly” to get production going in China and wants to have that going next year, according to Musk.

“We will also have a factory in Europe long term, because it is pretty silly to make cars in California and ship them to Europe,” Musk said.

Tesla shares got a boost earlier this week when a high-profile stock short-seller shifted gears to say the electric car maker is “destroying the competition.”

Tesla is at something of a turning point.

It has been accelerating production of its Model 3, yet the company remains burdened by billions in debt.

Featured Photo: AFP/File / Brendan Smialowski. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the firm is “moving rapidly” to get production going in China.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto — which vowed to appeal — acted with “malice” and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed “substantially” to Dewayne Johnson’s terminal illness.

Following eight weeks of trial proceedings, the San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly $290 million.

“The jury got it wrong,” the company’s vice president Scott Partridge told reporters outside the courthouse.

Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a cancer that affects white blood cells — says he repeatedly used a generic form of RangerPro while working at a school in Benicia, California.

AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Monsanto Vice President Scott Partridge speaks after Monsanto was ordered to pay nearly $290 million in damages for not disclosing the dangers of its popular Roundup products.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

“We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family,” Monsanto said in a statement promising to appeal the ruling and “continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others.”

But Johnson’s attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict “shows the evidence is overwhelming” that the product poses danger.

“When you are right, it is really easy to win,” he said.

– More to come? –

Wisner called the ruling the “tip of the spear” of litigation likely to come.

The lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer but observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to hundreds of other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by Germany’s Bayer.

AFP/File / JOSH EDELSON. Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr — an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson’s legal team — sat in the courtroom behind the dying man, who bowed his head.

“I think the verdict is going to trigger a cascade of new cases,” said Kennedy, who championed the case publicly.

“The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business.”

Partridge said outside the courthouse that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue, saying if anything the verdict would prompt the company to work harder to demonstrate the weed killer is safe.

“It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world,” Partridge said. “The verdict today does not change the science.”

– ‘Win for all of humanity’ –

Before jurors went to deliberate, Johnson’s attorney Brent Wisner asked they deliver a “day of reckoning” for Monsanto.

“The science finally caught up, where they couldn’t bury it anymore,” Wisner told the jury in closing arguments.

Roundup is Monsanto’s leading product and glyphosate is reportedly the world’s most commonly used weed killer.

“The Johnson v Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth,” said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

“The majority of our illnesses and losses to soil quality, water, wildlife and marine life are due to toxic chemicals, particularly Monsanto’s most widely used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Ranger Pro.

Monsanto always denied any link to the disease and said studies concluded the product was safe.

But the controversy has already damaged the company’s reputation.

AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Plaintiff DeWayne Johnson hugs one of his lawyers after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California.

Records unsealed earlier by a federal court lent credence to Johnson’s claims — internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June.

Monsanto was one of the companies that produced the defoliant “Agent Orange” — which has been linked to cancer and other diseases — for use by US forces in Vietnam.

The company denies responsibility for how the military used the product.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

Featured Photo: AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California in San Francisco.