Facebook pulls plug on fake account networks

Facebook has announced it removed hundreds of pages, groups and accounts on its platforms for “co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour” linked to three operations in Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Nigeria.

The operation in Indonesia involved a network of more than 100 fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram posting content in English and Indonesian either in support or critical of the West Papua independence movement, which is active in the country’s restive easternmost region of Papua.

“This was a network of pages designed to appear like local media organisations and advocacy organisations,” said David Agranovich, Facebook’s global lead for threat disruption.

He told Reuters that his team, which had been monitoring Indonesia in light of increasing tensions in Papua, had tracked the false accounts, which would disseminate content, buy adverts and drive people to other sites, to an Indonesian media firm called InsightID.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach InsightID for comment.

There has been a spike in protests and unrest since late August in Papua, which suffered some of its worst bloodshed in decades in September, with 33 people killed and scores injured.

Researchers had independently warned in September that there had been a rise of fake Twitter and Facebook accounts on Papua, with some of the fake accounts posting pro-government content.

Agranovich said Facebook also removed fake accounts related to two other unconnected networks in the Middle East and Africa.

THIS WAS A NETWORK OF PAGES DESIGNED TO APPEAR LIKE LOCAL MEDIA ORGANISATIONS AND ADVOCACY ORGANISATIONS

One, according to Facebook, was based out of Egypt but targeted the rest of the region by posting content in support of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as criticism of Qatar, Iran, Turkey and Yemen’s separatist movement.

The executive said this operation used fake accounts “to masquerade as local media organisations in a variety of those countries ... and amplify the content they were posting”.

According to Agranovich, Facebook found evidence that some of the pages had been purchased, with ownership changing regularly. It found deep links to Egyptian newspaper El Fagr, “which is known for its sensationalistic content”.

PLATFORMS

As a result of the investigation, Facebook has also removed El Fagr’s official media pages from its platforms, he said.

Reuters was not able to immediately contact El Fagr.

Facebook said that the third network, which it tracked to three marketing firms in the UAE, Egypt and Nigeria, involved fake accounts, which spread content on topics such as UAE’s activity in Yemen and the Iran nuclear deal.

The social media giant has recently been cracking down on such accounts after coming under fire in the past few years for its self-admitted sluggishness in developing tools to combat extremist content and propaganda operations.

Earlier in 2019, it removed accounts from Iraq, Ukraine, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Thailand, Honduras and Israel.