The Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-linked troll farm indicted for 2016 election interference, is suing Facebook for removing its account which had been used to spread disinformation and propaganda.
A corporate twin of the infamous IRA, calling itself the Federal Agency of News (FAN), filed suit in a northern California federal court on Tuesday demanding that judges force Facebook to restore its account. The Russian outlet insisted it’s merely “an independent, authentic and legitimate news agency.” And it made an argument likely to discomfort Facebook and attract support from the far right: it’s a free speech martyr unfairly victimized by the 21st century discourse’s digital gatekeepers.
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FAN had its account shuttered on April 3, the day that Facebook’s now-departed security chief, Alex Stamos, announced another wave of crackdowns over inauthentically presented accounts that traced to the troll farm. “The IRA Has No Place on Facebook,” Stamos wrote in a blog post.
FAN and the IRA are key components of Russia’s state-backed propaganda machine. They operated out of the same building, 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg–something FAN concedes in its lawsuit. And FAN’s chief accountant, Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, was indicted last month as part of what the FBI called “Project Lakhta,” a Kremlin-backed influence campaign on two continents.
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Both are believed to be funded by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch so close to the Kremlin that he’s known as “Putin’s chef.” Data from Google Analytics and other sources link FAN websites to “former” IRA employees; essentially, the two groups shared internet infrastructure, as well as a common physical location and a source of cash ... FAN’s founder and first director, Aleksandra Yurievna Krylova, was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in February for her alleged activities as part of the IRA.
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... FAN’s argument may well resonate with those on both the right and the left who consider Facebook to be closer to a public utility than a private company. “Facebook creates rules and regulations for the conduct of this [online] community and functions in the same way as a government entity,” it alleges. It even argues that FAN has “First Amendment rights” to publish on Facebook–which the company has violated, “solely on account of its and its members national origin.”
Among the other harms the IRA-tied entity claimed by being shut out of its Facebook account: it’s lost “future opportunities to reach its subscribers,” as well as “status and prestige amongst its Facebook followers, the general public and the journalistic community.”
Russian Trolls Sue Facebook, Their Old Propaganda Machine (Daily Beast)