Facebook removes Russian misinformation network pushing fake news about the war in Ukraine

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook says it has dismantled a misinformation network that pushed fake news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The network was relatively small, consisting of about 40 accounts, Pages, and Groups on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta. It is not clear how recently the group had started operating, but Meta says it had attracted less than 4,000 followers on Facebook and less than 500 onInstagram.

While these actors are trying to run influence operations, they are getting caught sooner and they are not reaching the audiences that they would have reached a few years ago.

The network was operated by individuals in Russia and Ukraine who created fake profiles on multiple social networks in order to appear real to investigators. They posed as news editors, a former aviation engineer, and an author of a scientific publication in order to get their picture taken.

According to Meta, the group ran a number of websites that were masquerading as independent news outlets, publishing claims about the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state.

The earlier group shared and promoted articles from media organizations that are now under US sanction. News stories on the sites claim that the Ukrainian border guards welcomed Russian troops with open arms, that the Ukrainian army is using civilians as human shields, and that UN-banned phosphorus is being used against the Russians. The stories are not verified by news outlets outside of Russia.

Meta says the accounts of Ukrainian military officials and public figures are being targeted. A threat actor known as Ghostwriter has been trying to hack into accounts and post videos depicting Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia.

Meta has taken other unknown steps, such as blocking domains used in Ghostwriter's attacks, and alerting users who are being targeted.

There is a lot of interest in whether there are covert influence operations targeting public debate in Ukranian and if there are cyber hacking groups targeting individuals in Ukranian.

The company says it has been removing misinformation linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company banned more than a dozen accounts that were sharing links to a propaganda site.

On February 27th, we permanently suspended more than a dozen accounts and blocked sharing of several links in violation of our platform manipulation and spam policy. The initial findings of our investigation show that the accounts and links originated in Russia and were attempting to disrupt the public conversation about the conflict in Ukraine.