WASHINGTON — Facebook is preparing to announce that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts -- (edited)
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Andie
Jul 31 '18, 11:52
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and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity before November’s midterm elections, according to three people briefed on the matter.
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Full article C&P here.
Facebook identifies political influence campaign ahead of U.S. midterms
By NICHOLAS FANDOS KEVIN ROOSEThe New York Times
Tues., July 31, 2018
WASHINGTON — Facebook is preparing to announce that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity before November’s midterm elections, according to three people briefed on the matter.
In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week, the company told lawmakers that it detected the influence campaign as part of its investigations into election interference. It has been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the centre of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two of the officials.
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Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, arrives to testify at a joint Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, in April 10.
Facebook has identified a coordinated political influence campaign that includes stoking division around white supremacy and the Abolish ICE movement.
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, arrives to testify at a joint Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, in April 10. Facebook has identified a coordinated political influence campaign that includes stoking division around white supremacy and the Abolish ICE movement. (TOM BRENNER / THE NEW YORK TIMES)
Facebook is expected to announce its findings Tuesday afternoon. The company has been working with the FBI to investigate the activity.
Like the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the recently detected campaign dealt with divisive social issues. Facebook discovered coordinated activity around issues such as a sequel to last year’s deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Coordinated activity was also detected around #AbolishICE, a left-wing campaign on social media that seeks to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to two people briefed on the findings.
That echoed efforts in 2016 to fan division around the Black Lives Matter movement.
After being caught flat-footed by the Internet Research Agency’s efforts to use social media to sow division ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Facebook is trying to avoid a repeat disaster in 2018. The company has expanded its security team, hiring counterterrorism experts and recruiting workers with government security clearances.
The company is using artificial intelligence and teams of human reviewers to detect automated accounts and suspicious election-related activity. It has also tried to make it harder for Russian-style influence campaigns to use covert Facebook ads to sway public opinion, by requiring political advertisers in the United States to register with a domestic mailing address and by making all political ads visible in a public database.
On a conference call with reporters in July, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, declined to directly answer questions about whether the company had detected additional Russian information campaigns.
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