Facebook announced that it removed four separate networks for violating Facebook’s policy against foreign interference and coordinated inauthentic behavior.
Facebook removed 54 Facebook Accounts, 50 Pages, and 4 Instagram accounts that were involved coordinated inauthentic behavior in the United States. This network focused on domestic audiences.
The network used fake accounts to pose as residents of Florida, posted and commented on their own content to make it appear more popular than it is, and attempted to evade enforcement. Facebook said that several of these accounts had links to Proud Boys, which Facebook describes as “a hate group we banned in 2018.”
The Page admins and account owners posted about local politics in Florida, Roger Stone and his Pages, websites, books, and media appearances, a Florida land and water resources bill, the hacked materials released by Wikileaks ahead of the US 2016 election, candidates in the 2016 primaries and general election, and the Roger Stone Trial.
Facebook also removed 41 Facebook accounts, 77 Pages, and 56 Instagram accounts that originated in Canada and Ecuador and focused on El Salvador, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Chile.
This network relied on a combination of authentic and inauthentic accounts. It activated around civic events such as elections, at times posting on both sides of the political debate, then abandoning or pausing its activity. They used fake accounts to drive people to off-platform sites and managed Pages posing as independent news in countries they targeted.
Facebook’s investigation of this group found links to political consultants and former government employees in Ecuador and Estraterra, a Canada-based PR firm.
Facebook removed 35 Facebook accounts, 14 Pages, 1 Group and 38 Instagram accounts that originated in Brazil and focused on domestic audiences. This network created fictitious personas posing as reporters, and managed Pages masquerading as news outlets. They posted about elections, political memes, and criticism of the political opposition.
Facebook’s investigation found links to individuals associated with the Social Liberal Party and some of the employees of the offices of Anderson Moraes, Alana Passos, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro, and Jair Bolsonaro.
Facebook also removed 72 Facebook accounts, 35 Pages, and 13 Instagram accounts that originated in Ukraine. This network focused on domestic audiences. They created fictitious personas, posted in Groups and Pages, commented on their own content, and evaded enforcement. Some of this network’s accounts had been removed for hate speech and impersonation. This network was active during the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine.
Facebook’s investigation found links to Postmen DA, an advertising agency in Ukraine.