Meta, the parent company of social networks Facebook and Instagram, announced on Tuesday that it has removed Russia’s largest web of disinformation about the war in Ukraine and a smaller network in China to influence the upcoming American elections.
Meta’s David Agranovich said at a press conference that the Russian operation began in May and mainly targeted Germany, but also France, Italy, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Meta said at the center of the operation were 60 fake websites impersonating popular media outlets such as the German newspapers Der Spiegel and Bild, the British newspaper The Guardian and the Italian news agency ANSA.
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The Russian network created articles criticizing and supporting Ukraine and shared them on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter and online petition platforms.
The tech company decided to investigate Meta after German journalists questioned the authenticity of these sites.
“This is arguably the largest and most complex Russian operation we have stopped since the beginning of the war in Ukraine,” explains Agranovich, with “a truly extraordinary combination of sophistication and brute force.”
On the one hand, he notes that “massive technical and linguistic investments” are required to emulate existing sites in multiple languages.
On the other hand, the dissemination of articles on social networks was mainly done by advertising or buying fake accounts, but not very successful. Usually these accounts were automatically detected by Meta’s alert system.
In total, the Californian company confirmed it had blocked 1,633 accounts, 703 pages, and a Facebook group and 29 Instagram accounts.
The network, which was spotted by Meta, which is operated in China and is much smaller, has tried several operations, two of which target Americans.
At first, the fake accounts came out as conservative and discussed topics like guns or abortion and even criticized Joe Biden. Messages were mostly in English, but were also found in Chinese or French.
In another operation, those who described themselves as progressive also criticized the Republican Party’s attitudes on weapons and abortion or attacked the policies of the Republic itself.
Meta emphasizes that for the first time, a disinformation operation targeting both Democrats and Republicans has raised controversial issues ahead of the legislative elections on 8 November.
The same China-based network also attacked Czech netizens with material criticizing their government’s support for Ukraine and its policy towards China, and sought to disseminate information on geopolitical issues, often critical of the United States.
In total, on this second network, Meta blocked 81 accounts, eight pages, and a Facebook group and two Instagram accounts.
The company said it doesn’t have enough evidence to indict certain groups in Russia or China.
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© Agence France-Press
source: Noticias
