Meta Says It Disabled Extensive Russian Propaganda Operation

The largest and most complex Russian propaganda social media operation on its platforms has been taken down by Meta.

According to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, the operation impersonated legitimate websites with articles that supported Russia and argued against Western sanctions on Russia.

The articles were promoted across a host of fake accounts and more than 60 websites, while the social media accounts of Russian embassies in Europe and Asia occasionally amplified the content.

Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine and the United Kingdom were some of the countries targeted by the operation.

Meta was able to detect many fake accounts, pages and ads before the company began its larger investigation into the propaganda efforts, it said.

The investigation began after German journalists reported on the operation.

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According to the Associated Press, a fake news story claimed that hundreds of Ukrainians were massacred in a suburb of Kyiv. The international condemnation of Russia was caused by the evidence gathered by human rights groups and journalists.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, social media companies have struggled to combat false claims about the war. In 2016 researchers found that Russia used Facebook and other major social media platforms to try and help Donald Trump become president, one of a number of criticisms Meta has faced in recent years. Russian ads were viewed by tens of millions of users on Facebook. The company made a number of mistakes in how it handled fake news and foreign interference, and has since come under fire for how it handled misinformation during the election. Since the war started, social media sites have disabled other operations that promoted anti-Ukraine talking points.

Contra

More than a thousand people have been arrested in the last week for protesting against the war in Ukraine and speaking out against it.

The Russian propaganda network is disabled.

The social networking sites removed accounts that were targeting Ukrainians.