Facebook announced today that it has found evidence of another coordinated election interference campaign on its site -- a likely effort to influence the 2018 U.S. Midterms. This time, things are a bit different. Facebook Uncovered Another Election Interference Campaign What Facebook Found In its official statement, Facebook said it removed 32 Pages and accounts -- eight Facebook Pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and seven Instagram accounts -- for what it describes as "inauthentic behavior" that intends to mislead network users. Altogether, Facebook said, more than 290,000 accounts followed one or more of the Pages removed. The events created by these Pages wasn't limited to "No Unite The Right 2- DC." There are some similarities between what was shared today and the Russian-bought content that was released by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in May 2018. When Facebook discovered and described the weaponization of its platform to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the evidence of Russian interference -- specifically, the IRA -- was clear, with the company able to trace that activity back to these parties. This time, however, Facebook says it cannot say with certainty who coordinated this campaign. And while there are some similarities with what was discovered this time around and the previous Russian interference, "we still don’t have firm evidence to say with certainty who’s behind this effort." As Facebook has indicated, the investigation is ongoing and more information is expected to be revealed as it proceeds.
Facebook announced today that it has found evidence of another coordinated election interference campaign on its site — a likely effort to influence the 2018 U.S. Midterms.
This is the second instance of a high-profile effort to weaponize Facebook with the goal of influencing a U.S. election. Last year, it was discovered that foreign actors — largely based in Russia — coordinated a similar campaign with the creation of numerous fake accounts and the spread of divisive information, much of it false.
This time, things are a bit different. Facebook caught a smaller number of accounts, but did so much earlier on — and the company is less confident about saying, for sure, who could be behind it.
Here’s what we know.
Facebook Uncovered Another Election Interference Campaign
What Facebook Found
In its official statement, Facebook said it removed 32 Pages and accounts — eight Facebook Pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and seven Instagram accounts — for what it describes as “inauthentic behavior” that intends to mislead network users.
Altogether, Facebook said, more than 290,000 accounts followed one or more of the Pages removed.
Of the Pages, those with the highest following included “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” “Mindful Being,” and “Resisters.” The last one, Resisters, worked with five other authentic Pages to organize an event called “No Unite the Right 2 – DC,” which it created to protest a “Unite the Right” scheduled for this August in Washington, D.C.
The authentic Pages “unwittingly” played a vital role in organizing this event, Facebook says, going to far as providing attendees with help finding transportation and locations. More than 2,500 users said they were interested in attending, and over 600 RSVP’d “yes.”
Facebook says it plans to inform these users of what it has discovered this afternoon.
The events created by these Pages wasn’t limited to “No Unite The Right 2- DC.” Together, they created roughly 30 events since May 2017, with the largest having 1,400 users RSVPing “yes.”
“[On] the previous events, we can assess what happened on Facebook, we can’t assess what happened in the real world — in the external world,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy.
That’s not great.
— Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) July 31, 2018
Combined, these accounts created 9,500 organic posts, running roughly 150 ads across Facebook and Instagram that cost a total of $11,000. The most recent ad was created in June 2018 (and the first, the company says, in April 2017 — the same month Facebook published a white paper on the potential misuse of…
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