Facebook removes political influence operations from China and Russia

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Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said it has shut down two unconnected networks of accounts based in China and Russia with the aim of influencing political narratives in the United States and Europe.

The platform regularly searches for and removes accounts that it believes have violated its policy against inauthentic, coordinated behavior. Such activity became a flashpoint in the United States after the 2016 presidential election when intelligence agencies found that Russian groups had used social media platforms to advance divisive narratives in the United States.

The Russia-based influence campaign primarily targeted Germany as well as France, Italy, Ukraine and the United Kingdom Beginning in May, a network of more than 60 websites impersonating legitimate news organizations in Europe published original articles critical of Ukraine and opposed to Western sanctions on Russia, Meta said. She added that the group will promote original articles, memes and YouTube videos across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter and Change.org.

Meta described the operation as “the largest and most complex of Russian-origin operations that we have disrupted since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.”

“He delivered an extraordinary combination of sophistication and brute strength,” Mita said. “Scam sites and the use of many languages ​​require a technical and linguistic investment. On the other hand, amplification on social media has relied primarily on raw ads and fake accounts.”

Meta said the group would create new websites even after it blocked their original domains for the duration of the investigation. The pages ran in several different languages ​​and their posts were occasionally amplified by the Russian Embassy’s Facebook pages in Europe and Asia.

However, Meta said that most of the accounts were detected and removed by its automated system before its investigations began.

Separately, Meta said it removed a “small network” that started in China targeting the United States, the Czech Republic, and some Chinese and French-speaking audiences elsewhere. Meta said the campaign “included four separate, largely separate, short-term efforts, each focused on a specific audience at different times between fall 2021 and mid-September 2022.”

Meta said the US-based China operation “targeted people on both sides of the political spectrum,” and was the first Chinese network focused on US domestic politics that was disrupted ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. It has stopped in the past and has usually focused on criticizing the United States for audiences in other countries.

Meta said the campaign in the Czech Republic prompted anti-government narratives targeting state support for Ukraine. Meta said each campaign featured about half a dozen accounts and posted “during business hours in China” and that few people actually participated in the posts.

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from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/facebook-removes-political-influence-operations-from-china-and-russia/