San Francisco (AFP)

Facebook has once again dismantled a Russian manipulation operation in the run-up to the US election, but the social media giant is now focused on other threats, less well controlled than the disinformation campaigns that had marred the previous presidential election .

The platform announced on Tuesday that it had withdrawn a "small network" of 13 accounts and pages linked to individuals associated in the past with a Russian organization close to the Kremlin, the "Internet Research Agency" (IRA).

This agency is accused of having animated an anti-Clinton and pro-Trump campaign in the United States in 2016.

This time, the operation, first spotted by the FBI, was at an early stage.

According to Facebook, the accounts and pages in question were mainly followed in Arab countries.

They had only 14,000 subscribers, including only 200 Americans on the English page, and posted political content in particular.

"These campaigns seek to encourage divisions, sow discord and diminish confidence in the electoral process," Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's director of security regulations, recalled at a press conference.

He explained that the various actors, foreign and national, who orchestrate these operations, have perfected their techniques to be less easily spotted.

More discreet, they are also less effective, and the collaboration between the different platforms, the authorities and the civil society makes it possible to stop them, generally before they have managed to build a substantial audience.

Since 2017, Facebook says it has dismantled 100 networks around the world for "coordinated inauthentic behavior," including a dozen linked to the IRA, which attempted to spread false information, conspiracy theories, hate speech and hijacked videos.

The platform is bracing for more aggressive attempts in the event of prolonged uncertainty over election results in November, "a good time" for rumors to spread.

"But we are also focused on operations that don't build networks, and just wait for the right moment to release spurious content. We have to be ready," Nathaniel Gleicher said.

He expects “hack-and-leak” tactics, where state-linked entities give pirated information to the media and use networks to spread it.

This is what happened with emails from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.

“And then there are the things that no one has thought of yet,” he added.

"So we have tools and teams mobilized to react quickly".

© 2020 AFP