Facebook says it has identified yet another new political influence campaign using the same tactic of creating fake profiles in an attempt to fuel the flames of social division.
This time the social network removed "652 fake accounts and pages that were trying to sow discord around social issues" abroad.
Some of the accounts in the new influence campaign originated in Iran and Russia, Facebook said.
The campaign’s scale exceeded that of another influence operation that Facebook revealed last month, in which the company said it detected and removed 32 pages and fake accounts that had engaged in activity around divisive social issues ahead of the midterms.
The revelations underscore how Facebook continues to be used as a weapon by others to try to influence the American electorate.
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Facebook did not definitively link last month’s campaign to Russia, but it said some of the tools and techniques used by the accounts were similar to those used by the Internet Research Agency.
From Facebook's newsroom:
Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram. Some of this activity originated in Iran, and some originated in Russia. These were distinct campaigns and we have not identified any link or coordination between them. However, they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing.
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While these are some of the same bad actors we removed for cybersecurity attacks before the 2016 US election, this more recent activity focused on politics in Syria and Ukraine. For example, they are associated with Inside Syria Media Center, which the Atlantic Council and other organizations have identified for covertly spreading pro-Russian and pro-Assad content. To date, we have not found activity by these accounts targeting the US.
We’re working closely with US law enforcement on this investigation, and we appreciate their help. These investigations are ongoing – and given the sensitivity we aren’t sharing more information about what we removed.
Facebook Identifies New Political Influence Operation Ahead of Midterm Elections (NYT)
Taking Down More Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (Facebook newsroom)