Comment Facebook and Twitter disrupted at least two covert influence campaigns targeting users in the Middle East and Asia with pro-Western views on international politics, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report by social media analytics firm Graphika and the University Stanford. The campaigns – one of which has been linked to the US government – have relied on a web of interconnected accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and five other social media giants to push narratives that support the interests of the United States and their allies while warring countries such as Russia, China and Iran, according to the report. Covert influence campaigns are being dismantled as social media giants try to crack down on disinformation campaigns about the war in Ukraine. However, much of this work has focused on counterintelligence efforts by Russian authorities to promote war propaganda, including false claims of Ukrainian military aggression in the region or accusing Western nations of complicity in the war. This particular crackdown by the social media giants is notable because one of the campaigns was linked to a US government messaging campaign called the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, the report said. Margarita Franklin, a spokeswoman for Facebook’s parent company Meta, confirmed in a statement that the company and Twitter recently removed a network of accounts originating from the United States for violating the platforms’ rules against coordinated inauthentic behavior. Franklin said it’s the first time the company has removed a foreign-focused influencer network based in the United States. A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The network of accounts shared news articles from US government-funded media outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and links to US military-funded websites criticizing the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The campaigns promoted the narrative that Russia was responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities just so it could pursue its “imperial ambitions,” the report said. Covert campaigns often mimicked the strategies used by other countries, such as Russia, when trying to influence public perception of world events in other countries. For example, accounts identified by Twitter and Facebook created fake personas with digitally created photos, posed as independent media and attempted to launch hashtag campaigns, the report said. In the wake of the war, social networking apps such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned or restricted the accounts of Russian state media, restricted advertising and stepped up their wartime fact-checking functions. Traffic to Russian government-backed media channels on social media soared in the first days of the invasion and then plummeted as the companies were cracked down on, according to a Washington Post analysis. Ukrainian officials have since flagged thousands of tweets, YouTube videos and other social media posts as Russian propaganda or hate speech against Ukraine, but many of the companies have failed to follow through, according to a recent report. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
