Meta announces that it has dismantled a disinformation network on the war in Ukraine
The social network Meta claims to have dismantled a disinformation network on the war in Ukraine.
REUTERS - DADO RUVIC
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Tuesday that it had dismantled a major disinformation network on the war in Ukraine carried out from Russia, as well as a smaller network targeting, from China, Americans in the approach of important elections.
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The Russian operation began last May and mainly targeted Germany, but also France, Italy, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
About 60 websites imitating recognized media sites, including the German newspapers
Spiegel
and
Bild
, the English daily
The Guardian
or the Italian agency Ansa constituted the bulk of these attempts at online disinformation.
The Russian network thus proposed fake articles criticizing Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, before sharing them on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter and online petition sites.
But investigative journalists began to question the authenticity of these sites, prompting Meta to launch its own investigation.
"
This is probably the largest and most complex Russian-origin operation we have interrupted since the start of the war in Ukraine
," with "
a truly unusual combination of sophistication and brute force
," he said. explained David Agranovich, a manager of Meta, during a press briefing with journalists.
A “
significant technical and linguistic investment
”
On the one hand, the imitation of existing sites, in several languages, required a "
significant technical and linguistic investment
", he noted.
On the other hand, the spread of articles on social networks was mainly done through the purchase of advertisements or fake accounts that were not very successful, often automatically detected by Meta alert systems.
► Also read: YouTube, Meta and Microsoft pledge to expand their fight against online extremism
The other, smaller network, operated from China, attempted several operations, two of which primarily targeted American voters.
These fake Tory profiles covered topics like guns and abortion.
If the Californian company says it has blocked most of the accounts, the pages of the groups on Facebook and Instagram, Meta specified that it did not have enough elements to incriminate the groups of influencers in Russia or China at the origin of this sophisticated misinformation.
In total, the Californian company says it has blocked 1,633 accounts, 703 pages and a group on Facebook as well as 29 accounts on Instagram.
(
With
AFP)
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