Menlo Park, California - Facebook has cracked down on a Russian company that paid influencers to lie about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.

As Engadget reported, Facebook took down 65 accounts, while Instagram removed another 243 that it had linked to a Russian group behind the misinformation campaign.

The group, Fazze, paid a number of influencers to help further spread false claims, according to the New York Times. Fazze ran their campaign in various countries and it was the use of influencers that gave them the most success.

"First, in November and December 2020, the network posted memes and comments claiming that the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine would turn people into chimpanzees," Facebook said.

"Five months later, in May 2021, it questioned the safety of the Pfizer vaccine by posting an allegedly hacked and leaked AstraZeneca document."

Ben Nimmo, who runs Facebook's Global Threat Intelligence Lead for Influence Operations, observed that this "coincided roughly with times when regulators and some of the target countries were discussing emergency authorization for each vaccine."

Some influencers shared that they were paid specifically to state that the Pfizer vaccine was deadly, and that's when they blew the whistle on Fazze.