By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com
Facebook revealed Tuesday that it uncovered a new coordinated disinformation campaign potentially targeting the midterm elections.
The company said the campaign involved dozens of fake accounts on its social media platform. In a statement posted on Facebook, the company said it removed 32 pages and accounts from its platform and Instagram “because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
Facebook said the accounts were targeting protests planned in Washington D.C. next week.
The company is uncertain of the source of the fake accounts and is investigating.
The discovery comes at a time when federal agencies in the U.S. said Russia continues to spread disinformation to divide Americans.
Facebook found:
- In total, more than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of these Pages, the earliest of which was created in March 2017. The latest was created in May 2018.
- The most followed Facebook Pages were “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” “Mindful Being,” and “Resisters.” The remaining Pages had between zero and 10 followers, and the Instagram accounts had zero followers.
- There were more than 9,500 organic posts created by these accounts on Facebook, and one piece of content on Instagram.
- They ran about 150 ads for approximately $11,000 on Facebook and Instagram, paid for in US and Canadian dollars. The first ad was created in April 2017, and the last was created in June 2018.
- The Pages created about 30 events since May 2017. About half had fewer than 100 accounts interested in attending. The largest had approximately 4,700 accounts interested in attending, and 1,400 users said that they would attend.
