Meta Follows Up On Russian Government Accounts To Fight Misinformation

Meta has removed the hacking campaign, which affected the network. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the flow of online information has become increasingly out of control, misinformation has also spread on social networks. This is also evidenced by the owner of Facebook, Meta in his report.

In its first quarterly hostile threat report, Meta has removed the hacking campaign, which affected fraudulent networks and operations amid the war in Ukraine.

The company is also currently reviewing additional measures to address misinformation from Russian government pages.

"We are constantly reviewing our policies based on the evolving situation on the ground and we are now actively reviewing additional measures to address misinformation and hoaxes originating from Russian government websites," said Meta Public Policy President Nick Clegg.

Meta said the governments of Russia and Belarus had been involved as actors in cyber espionage as well as covert online influence operations, including those linked to the Belarusian KGB.

The company has seen an increase in state-backed misinformation and other attempts to sow misinformation on its social media, as well as threats from Ghostwriter to hack into the Facebook accounts of dozens of members of the Ukrainian military.

In many of these cases, the threat actors targeted multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, VK, and OK.

"Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we have seen attacks on internet freedom and access to information increase," Clegg said.

“This manifests itself in two ways. One focus is pushing state propaganda through state-run media, influence operations, and espionage campaigns. And others aim to shut down the flow of credible information."

Citing Reuters, Friday, April 8, Meta said it had also removed 200 accounts operated from Russia that coordinate to misreport people, mostly in Ukraine and Russia, for offenses such as hate speech or intimidation.

The mass reporting was mainly coordinated within the cooking-themed Facebook Group which had about 50 members when Meta removed it last March.

In addition, tens of thousands of accounts, pages, and groups that tried to use the war in Ukraine to deceive users and make money by directing people to websites filled with ads or selling them merchandise have also been purged from social media.

Spammers around the world have used tactics such as streaming live game videos or reposting popular content including videos of other people from Ukraine pretending to share live updates from the crisis.

Other details that Meta disclosed included the removal of two cyber-espionage operations from Iran, an influence campaign in Brazil disguised as environmental activists to defend deforestation in the Amazon, and a network in the Philippines that claimed to have taken down and damaged news websites.