New York CNN Business –
Facebook’s parent company Meta announced Tuesday that it had detected and shut down two separate networks of fake accounts engaged in covert influence operations from China and Russia.
The Chinese network was small and received almost no attention, but it did include some accounts impersonating Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, according to a Meta report published Tuesday. Meta publicly detailed the withdrawal as it remains on high alert for foreign interference in the US midterm elections, a Meta spokesperson told CNN. Ben Nimmo, Meta’s global head of threat intelligence, told CNN it was the first time the company had seen Chinese accounts targeting Americans in this way. “They were running fake accounts pretending to be American and trying to talk like Americans and talking about really divisive domestic issues like abortion and gun control,” he said.
The company has shared details of the Chinese accounts with the FBI, a Meta spokesman said.
The Russian campaign, on the other hand, was vast. It pushed pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, listed thousands of accounts and pages on various social media platforms, and spent more than $100,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads.
Meta did not attribute any of the campaigns to specific entities in China or Russia, or to the Chinese and Russian governments, but said only the accounts that were part of the campaigns had been sold in the respective countries.
Meta said the network of Russian accounts it took down was “the largest and most complex Russian operation we’ve disrupted since the war in Ukraine began. It ran a sprawling network of more than 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 was spent on Facebook and Instagram ads as part of the campaign, Meta said.
The operation included websites designed to mimic real Western news media, 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 German media outlets Bild and Der Spiegel.
The sophistication of the effort was demonstrated in its attempts to promote disinformation about the Bucha massacre.
Meta noted on Tuesday that “the website impersonating The Guardian published an article accusing Ukraine of leading the killing of civilians during the Russian occupation of Bucha,” according to the report.
“The mimicry wasn’t perfect,” Meta noted, “but it showed an investment in making the site look authentic so that it could withstand at least casual scrutiny.”
The Chinese effort consisted of only about 80 Facebook accounts and had almost no following. Meta said the accounts were primarily aimed at audiences in the United States and the Czech Republic, but were posted during business hours in Beijing.
Meta said: “These accounts largely stuck to a shift pattern that coincided with a nine-to-five Monday-Friday work schedule during China’s working hours: 12 hours ahead of Florida and six hours ahead of Prague,” according to Meta. the report
Some of the accounts presented themselves as conservative Americans, while others posed as liberals living in Florida, Texas and California, according to Meta.
The accounts posted comments about some American news stories that appear to be designed to fuel online debate.
Despite having little traction online, Meta noted the importance of the network in its report. “This was the first Chinese network we disrupted that focused on US domestic politics ahead of the midterm elections,” Meta said. “The Chinese influence operations we’ve disrupted before were typically focused on criticizing the United States in front of international audiences, rather than primarily targeting domestic audiences in the U.S.”
Meta’s Ben Nimmo told CNN, “This was a small operation and it didn’t seem to build any significant audience, but it’s the first time we’ve seen an operation from China like this really focused on the political debates of the United States and we’re all on high alert before halftime.”
“We know that even small operations these days operate on many different social media platforms. So the more we can share information about that, the more we can tell people how this is happening, the more we can raise our defenses.” he said Monday night in an interview with CNN.
CNN has reached out to the FBI, Twitter, Telegram and YouTube for comment.