Meta Takes Down Influence Operations By China, Russia

Facebook parent Meta Platforms has removed “co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour” from China and Russia.

It announced that it had taken down two unconnected networks in China and Russia for violating its policy against co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour.

The battle against online disinformation campaigns has been ongoing for years now. Recent examples include Covid misinformation on social media platforms, and Russia’s ongoing propaganda – both in the lead up to its second invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, and its ongoing aggression in that sovereign nation.

Covert campaigns

“Today, we’re sharing our findings into two covert influence operations – from China and Russia – that we took down for violating our policy against Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB),” Meta announced.

It said that it shared information with its peers at tech companies, security researchers, governments and law enforcement so they too can take appropriate action.

According to Meta, the small covert network that originated in China, actually targeted the United States, the Czech Republic and to a lesser extent, Chinese- and French-speaking audiences around the world.

This campaign apparently included four largely separate and short-lived efforts, each focused on a particular audience at different times between the Autumn of 2021 and mid-September 2022.

Chinese campaign

In the United States, the Chinese campaign targeted people on both sides of the political spectrum; in Czechia this activity was primarily anti-government, criticising the state’s support of Ukraine in the war with Russia and its impact on the Czech economy, using the criticism to caution against antagonising China.

Meta said Facebook’s automated systems took down a number of accounts and Facebook Pages for various Community Standards violations, including impersonation and inauthenticity.

This operation ran across multiple social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and two Czech petition platforms.

“This was the first Chinese network we disrupted that focused on US domestic politics ahead of the midterm elections, as well as Czechia’s foreign policy toward China and Ukraine,” said Meta.

“Chinese influence operations that we’ve disrupted before typically focused on criticising the United States to international audiences, rather than primarily targeting domestic audiences in the US,” it added.

Russian campaign

And it is perhaps no surprise that Russia campaign has also been uncovered and shut down.

“We took down a large network that originated in Russia and targeted primarily Germany, and also France, Italy, Ukraine and the United Kingdom with narratives focused on the war in Ukraine,” said Meta.

“The operation began in May of this year and centered around a sprawling network of over 60 websites carefully impersonating legitimate websites of news organisations in Europe, including Spiegel, The Guardian and Bild,” the platform noted.

“There, they would post original articles that criticised Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, supported Russia and argued that Western sanctions on Russia would backfire,” said Meta. “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.”

“Throughout our investigation, as we blocked this operation’s domains, they attempted to set up new websites, suggesting persistence and continuous investment in this activity across the internet,” said Meta.

This campaign operated primarily in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.

“On a few occasions, the operation’s content was amplified by the Facebook Pages of Russian embassies in Europe and Asia,” noted Meta.

“This is the largest and most complex Russian-origin operation that we’ve disrupted since the beginning of the war in Ukraine,” noted Meta.

“It presented an unusual combination of sophistication and brute force,” said Meta. “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.”