Meta shuts down covert influence campaigns it says were run from China and Russia

[dalton99a]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/27/tech/meta-china-russia-influence-campaigns/index.html

Meta shuts down covert influence campaigns it says were run from China and Russia
By Donie O'Sullivan, CNN
Updated 10:37 AM EDT, Tue September 27, 2022

New York (CNN Business) — Facebook parent company Meta announced Tuesday it had detected and shut down two separate networks of fake accounts engaged in covert influence operations run from China and Russia.

The Chinese network was small and received barely any attention, but it did include some accounts that posed as Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, according to a Meta report released Tuesday. Meta publicly detailed the takedown as it remains on high alert for foreign interference in the US midterm elections, a Meta spokesperson told CNN. Ben Nimmo, Meta’s global threat intelligence lead, told CNN it was the first time the company had seen Chinese accounts targeting Americans in this way. “They were running fake accounts that pretended to be Americans and try to talk like Americans and they were talking about really divisive domestic issues like abortion and gun control,” he said.

Meta said the network of Russian accounts it had taken down was the “largest and most complex Russian operation we’ve disrupted since the war in Ukraine began, it ran a sprawling network of over 60 websites impersonating news organizations, as well as accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram, Twitter,” and other sites, according to the report.

More than 2,000 Facebook accounts and pages were part of the effort to push pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, Meta said. More than $100,000 were spent on ads across Facebook and Instagram as part of the campaign, Meta said.

The operation included websites that were designed to mimic real Western news outlets, including The Guardian. According to a list of website addresses included in the Meta report, the Russian campaign also registered fake sites designed to look like The Daily Mail and the German outlets Bild and Der Spiegel.

[SheltieLover]

1. Good!

[Tetrachloride]

2. I have numerous screenshots of a certain overseas psyops campaign.

The campaign took about a year. I haven't seen it for a few months.

It was pretty blatant and not just on FB. Dozens of super obscure websites so that Google would get see them.

[niyad]

3. Good!

[blm]

4. AFTER the elections in Sweden and Italy.

Still coddling Putin, Bannon, Thiel, and Mercers.

[TheRealNorth]

6. That's a good point

The neofascists are not just targeting us.

[KPN]

5. Too bad they didn't do this in 2016 and 2020.

[chriscan64]

7. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine

I started getting weird stuff on facebook, not the typical right wing stuff but slickly produced propaganda. I reported them all, but there is no comment box to say, "Hey this looks Russian can you check it out?" Went on for weeks with no response other than that it didn't violate their standards.

[Irish_Dem]

8. The US has been subjected to a horrific Russian psy-ops war for a long time.

China, Iran, Saudi have probably joined in as well.

We must get control of this situation or they will steal another election.

[DBoon]

9. so is this the "big tech censorship" American republicans hate?

[moondust]

10. What took so long?

Hasn't it been going on at least since 2015-16 to help Putin's puppet?

[tanyev]

11. So how many guys working for Russian troll farms are going to be drafted?

[dalton99a]

12. None. IT workers are exempt.

[tanyev]

13. Pity.