Facebook finds "sophisticated" efforts with possible links with Russia to disrupt US policy

Updated

1st of August 2018 04:55:42

Facebook says that he discovered efforts "Sophisticated", possibly linked to Russia, to influence American politics on its platforms

The company said it had deleted 32 Facebook and Instagram accounts because they were involved in a "coordinated" behavior and seemed to be false.

Facebook stopped saying that the effort was aimed at influencing the United States mid-term elections in November, although the moment of suspicious activity would be consistent with such an attempt.

"About two weeks ago we identified the first of eight pages and 17 profiles on Facebook, as well as seven Instagram account s, which violate our ban on coordinated unauthentic behavior," said in a statement posted by Facebook Tuesday afternoon.

The statement stated that all accounts were removed and the information was pbaded on to the US government and law enforcement agencies. This type of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we do not want people or organizations to create networks of accounts to mislead others about what they are or about what they are doing. do, "said the company in a post. Russia

According to a Facebook official, the company held briefings in the House and Senate this week. The official refused to be named because the briefings were private.

Facebook said that he did not know who was behind the efforts, but they have connections to Russia.

The company said it found some connections between accounts and accounts related to Russia's Internet Research Agency that it removed before and after the 2016 US presidential elections.

Facebook says that more than 290,000 accounts have followed at least one of the fake pages. The most popular Facebook pages were "Aztlan Warriors", "Black Elevation", "Mindful Being" and "Resisters".

"We are still in the early stages of our investigation and we do not have all they added that the authors had been" more careful about covering their tracks "than in 2016, partly because of the actions taken by Facebook to prevent market abuse. For example, they used virtual private networks and Internet telephony services, and paid third parties to serve advertisements on their behalf.

Facebook says the pages included about 150 ads for $ 11,000 on Facebook and Instagram, paid for

The content of the ads was still in the study, but Facebook was publishing samples, including events and news. anti-Trump posters, as well as content on the Aboriginal and Black rights movements

. the last was created in June 2018.

ABC / Wires

Topics:

US elections,

elections,

world politics,

Internet technology,

piracy,

donald-trump,

United States

Published

1st of August 2018 04:54:23