The majority of the exercise we removed today focused on home audiences in each nation and was linked to commercial entities and americans associated with political campaigns and political places of work. We’ve seen and brought action against home political figures using CIB in the past, and we know they will proceed to try to deceive and mislead people. Domestic campaigns like these raise a very complex problem by blurring the line among fit public debate and manipulation. Our teams will proceed in finding, remove and expose these coordinated manipulation campaigns, but we all know these threats extend beyond our platform and no single association can tackle them alone.
That’s why it’s fundamental that we, as a society, have a broader dialogue about what’s applicable political advocacy and take steps to discourage people from crossing the line. Over the past three years, we’ve shared our findings about coordinated inauthentic behavior we detect and take away from our platforms. In 2019 alone, we announced the elimination of over 50 networks globally, including previous to major democratic elections. Earlier this year, we began publishing ordinary CIB reports where we share assistance about all new networks we take down over the course of a month to make it easier for people to see progress we’re making in one place. In addition, sometimes, like today, we share our findings at the time of enforcement. Today’s takedowns will also be incorporated in our July report.
You can find additional info about our old CIB enforcement activities here. This community depended on a mix of authentic and inauthentic money owed, a few of which had already been detected and disabled by our computerized systems. This operation — which was also active on other information superhighway structures — activated around civic events equivalent to elections, at times posting on either side of the political debate, and then abandon or pause its undertaking. They used fake accounts to pose as locals in international locations they focused, post and like their very own content material, drive people to off platform sites, and manage Pages posing as unbiased news in international locations they focused. Some americans behind this exercise created a couple of duplicate debts under their own name. This community posted about home news in the countries it targeted, including topics equivalent to politics, activism, praise and criticism of political applicants, elections, the government of Venezuela, both aid and criticism of the President of Ecuador, political parties in the region including Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, Peronist party in Argentina, and the Progressive party in Chile.
This network consisted of a few clusters of connected recreation that relied on a combination of duplicate and fake money owed — some of which had been detected and disabled by our automatic programs — to evade enforcement, create fictitious personas posing as journalists, post content, and manage Pages masquerading as news shops. They posted about local news and events adding home politics and elections, political memes, criticism of the political competition, media agencies and journalists, and most recently they posted about the coronavirus pandemic. Some of the content posted by this network had already been taken down for Community Standards violations adding hate speech. The people behind this endeavor used fake money owed — a few of which had already been detected and disabled by our computerized programs — to create fictitious personas, post in Groups and on Pages, touch upon their own content, evade enforcement, and manage Pages. Some of this network’s accounts had also been removed for hate speech and impersonation. This network was particularly active in the course of the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine.
Some of its accounts have passed through big name changes through the years. The Page admins and account owners posted political memes, satire and other content material including about Crimea, NATO, financial guidelines in Ukraine, domestic politics, elections, criticism and support of loads of applicants, adding Volodymyr Zelensky, Yulia Tymoshenko, and Petro Poroshenko. The people behind this pastime used fake debts — a few of which had already been detected and disabled by our automated methods — to pose as citizens of Florida, post and comment on their very own content to make it appear more customary than it is, evade enforcement, and manage Pages. Several of these Pages had links to Proud Boys, a hate group we banned in 2018. Some Pages gave the impression to have obtained followers from Pakistan and Egypt to make themselves seem more ordinary than they were. This community — which was also active on other web systems — was most active among 2015 and 2017.
Since then, the general public of these debts have been dormant, and some were permanently deleted by the users. The Page admins and account owners posted about local politics in Florida, Roger Stone and his Pages, internet sites, books, and media appearances, a Florida land and water components bill, the hacked components released by Wikileaks earlier than the US 2016 election, applicants in the 2016 primaries and basic election, and the Roger Stone trial.
