Facebook said on Monday it was removing certain Myanmar military officials from the social media website and an Instagram account to prevent the spread of "hate and misinformation."

"..we are banning 20 Burmese individuals and organizations from Facebook - including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military's Myawady television network," Facebook said.

"We're removing a total of 18 Facebook accounts, one Instagram account and 52 Facebook Pages, followed by almost 12 million people," Facebook said in a blog post.

The world's largest social media networking site said it had removed 46 Pages and 12 accounts for engaging in coordinated "inauthentic" behavior on Facebook.

"During a recent investigation, we discovered that they used seemingly independent news and opinion Pages to covertly push the messages of the Myanmar military. This type of behavior is banned on Facebook because we want people to be able to trust the connections they make," Facebook said.