"Meta Takes Down Over 200 Covert Influence Operations Since 2017"

Meta has recently revealed that it has taken down over 200 covert influence operations on its platforms since 2017.  Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, said these networks were disrupted for violating its Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) policy.  Meta noted that the deceptive networks originated from 68 countries and operated in at least 42 languages.  Only a third of them solely targeted audiences outside of their own countries, with the majority focusing on people within their own borders.  The most common location for CIB networks was Russia (34), followed by Iran (29) and Mexico (13).  Meta noted that Russian operations targeted Ukraine most often, followed by Africa and the United States.  Meta stated that Russian influence operations were run by a variety of actors, such as individuals with links to the Russian military and military intelligence, marketing firms, and entities associated with a sanctioned Russian financier.  Tactics ranged from writing spammy comments to running fictitious cross-platform media entities that hired real journalists to write for them.  Meta stated that Iranian campaigns since 2021 focused mainly on politics in the target country, with the perpetrators linked to smaller groups, like academics or people with a background in teaching English as a foreign language.  In contrast, Meta noted that most CIB networks originating in Mexico focused on local audiences, often relating to local elections.  Overall, the US was the most targeted country by operations (34), followed by Ukraine (20) and the UK (16).  In September 2022, Meta revealed it closed down two significant but unconnected disinformation operations originating in China and Russia, which attempted to influence public opinion in Western countries.

Infosecurity reports: "Meta Takes Down Over 200 Covert Influence Operations Since 2017"