Meta says clusters of fake accounts on its platforms, some of which were detected and disabled by its automated systems, were found linked with the US military.
According to independent experts, the effort was the first such covert pro-US propaganda program to be dismantled by a big-tech business. It opposed nations like Iran, China, and Russia while defending the US and its allies.
“Individuals associated with the US military” are linked to an online propaganda campaign, Meta’s latest adversarial-threat report says.
But experts said it was largely ineffective
For breaking the terms of service prohibiting “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” 26 accounts on Instagram and 39 accounts, 16 pages, and two groups on Facebook were both deleted. According to Meta, “This network originated in the US.”
It concentrated on nations such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, and used strategies that were frequently employed in propaganda operations against the West, such as:
- fake personas
- artificially generated images
- campaigns across multiple platforms
According to analysts, the accounts aimed at Iran blogged about themes like women’s rights and criticized Iranian authorities and policies. Some of those backing the US sought to pass off news from reliable sources, such as BBC News Russian, as their own and some of them pretended to be independent media groups.
According to Meta, the operation used a variety of online sites, including Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, VKontakte, and Odnoklassniki.
‘Public trust’
“Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military,” its report says. But most of the posts had “little to no engagement” from real users.
When the campaign was first made public, Andy Carvin, managing editor of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, told the BBC that launching such a campaign would be “ineffective and counterproductive” for democracies because it would mean employing “the very tactics used by your adversaries” and “further eroding public trust.”
The Washington Post’s earlier reporting is supported by Meta’s revelation. Concern over the operation, according to sources, prompted the Pentagon to launch “a sweeping audit” of how the US military carried out clandestine information warfare.
According to a statement to BBC News, the US Department of Defense is “aware of the report published by Meta”.”At this time, we do not have any further comments on the report or potential actions that may be taken by the department as a result of the report,” it added.