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Facebook has deleted 82 pages, groups and accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" originating in Iran.
The social networking giant has discovered "inauthentic behavior" late last week, according to a blog post from the company's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. he said the operation was based on pretending to be American and British citizens and "broadcast on politically charged topics such as race relations, opposition to the president and immigration" . The company said that, although its investigation is in its infancy, it would have traced the activity in Iran, but still did not know who was responsible for it.
Facebook said that just over one million accounts followed at least one of the pages run by Iranian actors. The takedown also included 16 accounts on Instagram.
Actors spent "less than $ 100" on two Facebook and Instagram ads using US and Canadian currencies, which allowed them to reach more Facebook users.
The company shared its findings with the FBI and the Atlantic Council prior to dismantling, Gleicher added during a call. "In less than a week, we went from detection to disruption," he said.
An analysis conducted by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab on the latest setbacks indicates that "the accounts were intended to create engagement on the platforms, with a combination of memes, videos, and author comments," which, according to the laboratory, "seems to have worked" with publications receiving a large number of actions and answers.
"The foreign policy messages were consistent with previous Iranian networks, which mainly amplified the Iranian government's narratives about the Middle East," the analysis said. "The focus on divisive content is much closer to the behavior of the Russian information operation, although the Iranian operation does not seem to have targeted both the conservatives and the liberals . "
This is the last batch of account and content withdrawals in recent months. In August, Facebook recorded hundreds of accounts and pages with the help of the FireEye security company, which discovered a widespread Iranian influence operation on the social media platform. Although Facebook has already tried to suppress accounts linked to widespread misinformation for elections, the Iran-backed campaign aimed at a multitude of problems. FireEye said in his analysis that the various stories used by the Iranians include "anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for US policies favorable to Iran, such as as the US-Iran nuclear deal ". "
Lawmakers like Facebook are under increasing pressure from lawmakers to better protect their platforms from misinformation and the spread of fake news of state-backed actors as a result. 2016 presidential election.
Although the focus was on troll-related activities for the Russian government, which used widespread disinformation tactics to try to influence the outcome of the elections, Iran's main focus was on the activities of the Russian government. is imposed as a separate central in its use of widespread misinformation on the platform.
