Facebook Removes Network Of Accounts Used To Report Posts From Anti-government Activists In Vietnam

Facebook removes network of accounts that vulgarly offered ads to report account posts. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - Facebook has removed a network of accounts from its platform that it said had targeted Vietnamese activists critical of the country's government. This was revealed by an official at Facebook's parent company, Meta Platform Inc., Wednesday, December 1.

In July, the company removed a Vietnamese Facebook group called "E47" that mobilized its members to report posts they didn't like to Facebook, in a bid to remove the posts.

The latest action was taken against a separate group, according to David Agranovich, Facebook's Head of Global Threat Disruption.

"What we are seeing is a network of accounts in Vietnam that engage in this kind of coordinated targeting of activists, and others who openly criticize the Vietnamese government," Agranovich told Reuters.

The attackers used Facebook accounts to send "hundreds or thousands of reports" against their targets, using Facebook's built-in reporting tools, Agranovich said of the network, which was also detailed in a report released by Facebook on Wednesday.

"Many operators will use fake accounts, which they will use to pretend to be their targets, and then they will report the target's real accounts as impersonating accounts," he added.

Some accounts even publicly offer deletion of other Facebook accounts as a commercial service, according to Agranovich.

"They basically advertise this kind of abusive reporting service in their actual bio," he said.

Unlike in neighboring China, Facebook is not blocked in Vietnam, where the social media platform has about 70 million users and is the country's main platform for e-commerce.

It has also become a major platform for political dissent. This has put Facebook and the Vietnamese government in a constant struggle over the removal of content deemed "anti-state".

Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which handles inquiries to the government from foreign media, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.