Facebook says it took down a Russian operation that recruited US journalists, amid rising concerns about election misinformation

Facebook took down a small network of fake accounts and pages associated with Russian operatives that had recruited U.S. journalists to write articles targeting left-leaning readers on topics such as racial justice, the Biden-Harris campaign and President Donald Trump’s policies, the company said Tuesday.

Facebook said it caught the network of 13 fake accounts and two pages early, before it had a chance to build a large audience - an action that company said was evidence of its growing effectiveness at targeting foreign disinformation operations ahead of the 2020 election. The takedown emerged as a result of a tip from the FBI and was one of a dozen operations tied to the Russian Internet Research Agency or individuals affiliated with it that Facebook has disrupted since the last presidential election, when IRA-backed pages amassed millions of views on the platform. The pages had about 14,000 followers.

“They’ve gotten better at hiding who they are, but their impact has gotten smaller and smaller,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said of the foreign operations.

In addition, Facebook also took down a disinformation network associated with a U.S. public relations firm called CLS Strategies that the company said had spent millions of dollars to target users primarily in Latin America. The firm had previously advised foreign clients that used Facebook, according to news reports and its own website.

CLS did not immediately response to voice mail and emailed queries.

Facebook said the Russian operatives created fictitious personas on Facebook to direct people to a new site called Peace Data, which billed itself as a “global news organization” whose goal was “to shed light on the global issues and raise awareness about corruption, environmental crisis, abuse of power, armed conflicts, activism, and human rights.”

One article posted on Facebook about the far-right militia movement known as the “boogaloo” movement featured a headline that read, “USA Far Right is Growing Thanks to President Trump,” according to a report provided by Facebook.

In 2016, Russian operatives tied to the Internet Research Agency ran widespread disinformation campaigns on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, garnering huge audiences with content that attempted to sow division among U.S. voters. The technology platforms faced significant blowback from Congress and the public for failing to prevent foreign interference and since then have invested significant resources in countering such activity.

As the 2020 election draws near, experts say technology companies have become more skillful at getting ahead of foreign interference, even as the threat has broadened beyond Russia to countries such as China and Iran. But social media platforms are still rife with misinformation and abuse, often emerging from domestic actors that have caused false stories about current events to go viral.

A report Tuesday by Graphika, a network analysis firm based in New York that received the Facebook data in advance, found that the Russian effort was small but echoed past efforts to undermine support for Democratic Party candidates by appealing to left-wing U.S. voters. Among the targets were Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who were criticized by the phony network as immoral tools of political conservatives. Some posts also criticized Trump, but the target audience in the United States was democratic socialists, environmentalists and disaffected Democrats, the report found.

Some of the fake content focused on racial justice and unrest in the United States since the killing of George Floyd in May.

“The English-language content on Biden and Harris was noteworthy for its hostile tone,” Graphika reported. “One article by a guest writer accused the pair of ’submission to right-wing populism ( …) as much about preserving careers as it is winning votes.”

The co-option of unwitting locals is part of a growing strategy by foreign disinformation operatives.

“Hiring people who are fluent in the language and culture avoids the kind of tells that can expose an operation,” said Renee DiResta, technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, which has tracked the strategy.

Most of the content for Peace Data was in English, with 500 articles overall. About 5 percent were explicitly aimed at the U.S. election and candidates. There were also 200 articles in Arabic, Graphika found.

“The operation seemed designed to divide Democratic supporters and to depress support for Biden and Harris,” said Camille François, chief innovation officer for Graphika.

Disinformation researchers do not consider the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based operation indicted by U.S. officials for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, as still functioning in the same way it did years ago. Researchers instead see numerous operations by Russian people and groups that appear to have some previous affiliation with the IRA, using an updated playbook that typically involves more targeted - but less viral - efforts to impact political debates and elections.

Avoiding detection is a key goal of these operations, experts say. Facebook and Twitter, for example, took action against a Russian-linked operation in March that worked with a nonprofit group in Ghana and sought to influence Black voters in the United States with targeted messages. The Internet Agency in 2016, by contrast, pushed viral messaging on social media platforms designed to reach large numbers of voters based on political interests and affiliations. The Russian operations in 2016 paid for ads aimed at U.S. voters using rubles, the Russian currency, signaling a lack of concern regarding detection.