Facebook takes down fake accounts boosting Russian disinformation in Ukraine

A network of fake accounts have been taken down by Facebook. Over the last 48 hours, the company has removed about 40 accounts, pages and groups from Facebook. The company worked to stop hacking attempts at Ukrainian military and government officials.

David Agranovich, Meta's Director of Threat Disruption, told a group of people on Sunday night that the accounts in question hadn't yet gained a large following. He said the accounts had 4,000 followers and 500 on Facebook.

According to Nathaniel Gleicher, the company, the fake personas were being used to prop up fake news websites that published claims aimed at undermining the Ukrainian government and boosting the activities of Russian actors.

The company said in a statement that it has linked the people behind the fake accounts to a previous take down of fake accounts in 2020. The activity was traced to individuals in Russia, the Donbass region in Ukraine, and two media organizations in the peninsula.

A group of Ukrainian journalists, military officials and other public figures have been the target of hacking attempts in recent days. The activity that Facebook is attributing to is meant to spread misinformation. Ghostwriter uses phish attacks to take over email accounts and social media accounts in order to post misinformation while posing as public figures, according to Facebook.

We detected attempts to target people on Facebook, and post videos portraying Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia, according to Agranovich. Facebook isn't speculating who is behind Ghostwriter, but other researchers have linked the attacks to the country.

As Facebook tries to contain Russia's ability to wield disinformation on its platform, it has taken down some of them. Last week, Facebook said it was forming a security operations center to monitor the situation in Ukraine and help it respond quickly to threats and misinformation. Gleicher said on Sunday that Facebook would be enabling its lock profile tool in Russia as well.

Russia plans to restrict access to Facebook in the country after the company refused to remove fact checks from Russian state media outlets. The company hasn't seen any signs that its services are being blocked. He confirmed that Facebook is blocking the ability of a number of Russian state media entities to broadcast into Ukraine.

Gleicher didn't rule out the possibility of blocking Russian state media after the EU banned two prominent outlets.