Meta dismantled an ineffective Russian propaganda operation

It felt like a throwbacksaid Ben Nimmo, one of the security managers of the Californian group. But they weren’t very good and there’s no evidence that they got the impact and virality they had before..

Meta has dismantled a network of fake accounts on its platforms, created by an entity called Cyber ​​Front Z and people associated in the past with the Internet Research Agency (IRA), suspected of being a digital arm of the Kremlin.

These fake accounts, managed by people employed in a troll farm located in St. Petersburg, were posting pro-Russian comments under personalities and media content, to give the impression of popular support for the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia sends tons of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, where local Nazis […] hold citizens hostagethus commented one of these accounts under a video posted by Angelina Jolie on the war, on Instagram, according to the report of Meta.

In all, the social media giant withdrew more than 1,000 accounts on Instagram and 45 on Facebook in early April. Some 49,000 accounts were following one or more of the fake profiles on Instagram.

No hidden iceberg

In 2016, the American presidential campaign was marked by massive influence operations carried out by the IRA in favor of Donald Trump.

But unlike other past campaigns, Cyber ​​Front Z didn’t really try to lay low, on the contrary.

There was no iceberg hidden belownoted Ben Nimmo. It was an attempt to hack the (public’s) perception, playing on our fears, playing on the impression that these operations are effective.

They had this weird channel on Twitter that said “We hacked your elections, we overthrew the Americans, your democracy is in our pocket”said the manager.

A Russian media, Fontanka, revealed in March that a troll farm recruited polemicists and unsolicited email specialists to post messages on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, and others in Russia.

On Telegram messaging, a public channel called on its subscribers to flood certain accounts of public figures or news sites with pro-Russian comments.

The operation, however, was largely clumsy and inefficientnotes the report. On Instagram, more than half of fake accounts were detected and deactivated by our automatic systems right after they were created.

–