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Facebook removed 364 propaganda pages and accounts of Russian origin

byEU East StratCom Task Force
22/01/2019
4 minute read
Facebook removed 364 propaganda pages and accounts of Russian origin
Facebook removed 364 propaganda pages and accounts of Russian origin
On 17 January Facebook announced that 364 pages and accounts would be closed, due to “engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a network that originated in Russia and operated in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern European countries.” The whole statement can be found here.
In short, Facebook has managed to identify 364 pages that claim to be independent news pages, but in reality – a part of a coordinated operation, lead from Russian state actors. In this case – state-owned Russian agency, Sputnik
. According to the Facebook announcement, the pages that have been closed have been linked to employees of Sputnik. The pages have been devoted to various topics, liked weather, travel, sports or politics. Several pages have been devoted to politicians in several EU member states, Eastern Partnership states and in Central Asia.
The pages now closed by Facebook had around 790,000 followers and invested 135,000 US Dollars on advertising.
Besides the 364 pages connected to the Sputnik Agency, Facebook closed another 107 pages, groups and accounts and 41 Instagram pages, all engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a network, based in Russia and operating in Ukraine.
"Separately, based on an initial tip from US law enforcement, we also removed 107 Facebook Pages, Groups, and accounts, as well as 41 Instagram accounts, for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a network that originated in Russia and operated in Ukraine. The individuals behind these accounts primarily represented themselves as Ukrainian, and they operated a variety of fake accounts while sharing local Ukrainian news stories on a variety of topics, such as weather, protests, NATO, and health conditions at schools," the Facebook report reads.
The term “coordinated inauthentic behavior” means that the pages are part of a coordinated effort, in this case, run by Kremlin operatives, but pretending to appear as independent, individual sites. Facebook and other social networks have intensified their efforts to sniff out this kind of deception: “Our security efforts are ongoing to help us stay a step ahead and uncover this kind of abuse, particularly in light of important political moments and elections in Europe this year. We are committed to making improvements and building stronger partnerships around the world to more effectively detect and stop this activity.” The EU issued late last year an Action Plan
 aimed at tackling online disinformation in EU countries and beyond. The Action Plan acknowledges the need to challenge Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns. The Action Plan will also ensure that tech companies comply with the European Commission’s Code of Practice, a document that commits online platforms to increase transparency for political advertising and to reduce the number of fake accounts.
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