August 30, 2023
Misinformation is big business.
And Meta – Facebook’s parent company – just announced it took down the largest known online covert influence operation in the world that was using multiple social media platforms to advance China’s interests and narratives while discrediting the United States.
This misinformation campaign was pushing fake content about Covid19, the Nord Stream pipeline, and even trying to put a further wedge between political parties in the united states – like we need more help with that. These accounts were posting fake articles, fake “research papers” and videos full of misinformation.
Meta says it took down 7,7704 Facebook accounts, almost 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups and 15 Instagram accounts. In all the network had about 560,000 followers. But that’s not where it stops – Meta says this Chinese-based campaign has been operating basically unnoticed for about 5 years and had accounts across a wide network of about 50 platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest and X.
The Chinese government has always denied targeting the US with online influence campaigns or disinformation.
This recent take down was the seventh meta says it has completed from China in just the last six years. That’s on top of another recent take down of the largest and most aggressive Russian operation the company has seen. That campaign was focused on pushing misinformation about Ukraine and weakening support in the United States.
Read more from Meta’s report here.
