Meta, Facebook’s parent company has confirmed that it has taken down two significant but unrelated ‘disinformation operations’ rolling out from China and Russia.
The campaigns began at the beginning of May 2022, targeting media users in Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, and the UK. The campaign attempted to influence public opinions by pushing fake narratives in the west, pertaining to US elections and the war in Ukraine.
The campaign spoofed around 60 websites, impersonating legitimate news websites, such as The Guardian in the UK and Bild and Der Spiegel in Germany. The sites did not only imitate the format and design of the original news sites but also copied photos and bylines from the news reporters in some cases.
“There, they would post original articles that criticized Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, supported Russia, and argued that Western sanctions on Russia would backfire […] They would then promote these articles and also original memes and YouTube videos across many internet services, including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, petitions websites Change.org and Avaaz, and even LiveJournal” Meta stated in a blog post.
In the wake of this security incident, Facebook and Instagram have reportedly removed nearly 2,000 accounts, more than 700 pages, and one group. Additionally, Meta detected around $105,000 in advertising. While Meta has been actively quashing fake websites, more spoofed websites continue to show up.
However, “It presented an unusual combination of sophistication and brute force,” claims Meta’s Ben Nimmo and David Agranovich in a blog post announcing the takedowns. “The spoofed websites and the use of many languages demanded both technical and linguistic investment. The amplification on social media, on the other hand, relied primarily on crude ads and fake accounts.”
“Together, these two approaches worked as an attempted ‘smash-and-grab’ against the information environment, rather than a serious effort to occupy it long term.”
Both the operations are now taken down as the campaigns were a violation of Meta’s “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” rule, defined as “coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal, in which fake accounts are central to the operation”.
Addressing the situation of emerging fraud campaigns, Ben Nimmo further said, “We know that even small operations these days work across lots of different social media platforms. So the more we can share information about it, the more we can tell people how this is happening, the more we can all raise our defences.”
