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Facebook and Twitter are cracking down on a campaign linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA), an organisation close to the Russian government which was accused of interference in the 2016 US election.
Facebook on Tuesday said that it had removed a “small network” of 13 Facebook accounts and two pages linked to “individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency.”
Twitter had also suspended five networks that can be “reliably” attributed to “Russian state actors.”
The crackdown was linked to PeaceData, a website that claimed to be a non-profit news portal in English and Arabic.
“The accounts purported to be associated with a website called PeaceData, which publishes a range of content about global political issues. At least some of the content published on the website was created by real people who appear to have contributed to PeaceData as freelancers,” said Twitter.
“The Tweets from the Russian-linked accounts were low quality and spammy, and most Tweets from these accounts received few, if any, Likes or Retweets,” it added.
According to Facebook, which is working with Graphika, an independent research firm to investigate such ‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour,’ though limited, PeaceData tricked various freelance journalists into writing for them.
Largely unsuccessful
“The IRA-linked campaign we removed in August was largely unsuccessful on Facebook, but it tricked unwitting freelance journalists into writing stories on its behalf. We’re notifying people who we believe have been contacted by this network,” Facebook said.
Both Facebook and Twitter stated that the campaign had relatively little impact and a small audience.
Twitter and Facebook along with other tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Reddit, Verizon Media, Pinterest, LinkedIn and WikiMedia are working with the US government partners including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Foreign Influence task force “to counter shared threats to the online public conversation ahead of the 2020 US elections.”
Earlier this month, the tech giants had met with US government agencies to discuss scenario planning for the upcoming election results, according to a joint public statement.
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