Researchers discover sprawling pro-U.S. social media influence campaign
Facebook and Twitter, in a first, have cracked down on a series of covert influence campaigns designed to spread pro-U.S. sentiment abroad, researchers
Facebook and Twitter, in a first, have cracked down on a series of covert influence campaigns designed to spread pro-U.S. sentiment abroad, researchers announced Wednesday.
A report, jointly published by Stanford University and Graphika, a social media analytics company that works with Facebook and Twitter, found hundreds of inauthentic accounts designed to spread pro-U.S. views on current events to users in the Middle East and central Asia.
It’s unclear who was behind the pro-U.S. campaigns, which had operated since 2017, though Facebook determined that the account activity originated in the U.S., and Twitter that it was from the U.S. and the U.K.
“Consistently across the campaigns we saw them advancing narratives in support of the U.S. and allies, and particularly criticizing Russia, China and Iran,” said Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s vice president of intelligence.
The campaigns used many of the same tactics that researchers frequently see in similar information operations aimed at denigrating the U.S. and its allies, Stubbs said. Those include creating fake personas with artificially generated profiles that had accounts across multiple platforms and creating fake news sites that frequently plagiarized articles from elsewhere on the internet.
Rating: 5