New report released Wednesday by Facebook shows the U.S. as top target of the deceptive foreign influence ops using the social media company between 2017 and 2020, as well as second most targeted country by domestic influence operations, Reuters learns
One of the top sources of coordinated inauthentic behavior networks targeting the United States before the 2020 presidential election, according to Facebook Inc., was a domestic campaign originating in the U.S.
Results are based on the number of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” networks , a type of influence operations that relies on fake accounts to mislead users and manipulate the public debate for strategic ends, removed by Facebook.
The social media company started the crackdown campaign on these influence ops after 2016, when Russia was blamed by the U.S. intelligence for using the platform in its cyber-influence campaign aimed to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, pointed that IO [influence operations] started out as an elite sport with a small group of nation states that were using these techniques, but now more people are getting into the game.
Russia and Iran, according to Facebook Inc., topped the list of sources of coordinated inauthentic behavior, followed by Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Libya and Sudan.
Facebook emphasized that domestic influence ops that targeted the United States were operated by conspiratorial or fringe political actors, PR or consulting firms and media websites that are looking to make a business around deception.
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