Social media analytics firm Graphika said Twitter and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, took down the accounts through a “series of covert campaigns” over five years. Twitter said the accounts violated its policies on “platform manipulation and spam,” and Meta said it engaged in “coordinated inaccurate behavior.” The platforms provided portions of the accounts’ activity to Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. “This activity represents the most extensive case of a covert influence operation promoting pro-Western narratives that has been publicly documented to date,” Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s vice president of intelligence, told the Wall Street Journal. The Hill has reached out to Meta and Twitter for comment. A joint investigation revealed that an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and five other social media platforms used “misleading” strategies to support Western narratives in the regions. The bills advanced the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing those of countries such as Russia, China and Iran. More recently they have criticized Russia for civilian deaths in Ukraine and actions taken by Russian soldiers as the war continued. Hillicon Valley — Twitter whistleblower to testify in Senate — House panel shows Trump pressure on FDA The accounts created fake personas and presented themselves as independent media, using memes and short videos, trying to start hashtag campaigns and starting petitions to favor a cause. Graphika said in its analysis that the study of influence peddling has mostly focused on those from “authoritarian regimes” such as Russia and China, but the report shows that additional actors are involved in such operations. But Graphika said the effectiveness of the campaigns was limited, and most posts didn’t get more than a handful of likes. Less than 20 percent of “hidden assets” had more than 1,000 followers.
