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BREAKING: Facebook just took down 364 pages and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the former USSR. Who was running them? Sputnik employees, that's who.https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/01/removing-cib-from-russia/ …
The great @nikaaleksejeva found the first part of this network in Latvia. @DFRLab has been looking at the whole network since then.
Top takeaways here:https://medium.com/dfrlab/facebooks-sputnik-takedown-top-takeaways-dbc22f7e9540 …
The network was cross-border, large-scale, and amplified Rossiya Segodnya content - mostly Sputnik, but also the TOK video service. Fake amplification, on an industrial scale. Detailed analysis here:https://medium.com/dfrlab/facebooks-sputnik-takedown-in-depth-f417bed5b2f8 …
The pages posed as all kinds of interest groups, from foodies to presidential fans. But they systematically promoted Sputnik content (and sometimes TOK), and cross-posted their videos. Cross-posting is only possible if the source allows it...pic.twitter.com/vTzuGvNKkq
Facebook traced these pages to Sputnik employees. The open-source evidence pointed in that direction too. Look at this page. Uzbekistan presidential fan page, managed from Russia.pic.twitter.com/y8sXUg7box
Here's a page about fashion in Georgia, paying to promote a Sputnik article.pic.twitter.com/FL2SZd8F63
Another Georgian page, about the weather in Abkhazia. This one exclusively shared Sputnik content. No other sources at all in December.pic.twitter.com/0cl7CSgOj4
This page, focused on Uzbekistan, was a bit more subtle. It shared Sputnik stories via Google shortener, and added memes. But all it shared was Sputnik.pic.twitter.com/q5dZaZTZSJ
This one, in Estonia, interspersed Sputnik posts with other news sources. But look at the pattern of video sharing.pic.twitter.com/3tMMI1Iq9S
Sputnik was the main beneficiary, but TOK, which is also part of the Rossiya Segodnya portfolio, was amplified too.pic.twitter.com/ois0dKowYH
Some of the pages were upfront about their Sputnik connections. This one referenced "my dear colleagues at Sputnik Kazakhstan."pic.twitter.com/SfWROkLzZB
In Latvia, after @nikaaleksejeva uncovered this network, @lsmlv asked the head of Sputnik Latvia about the pages, and he confirmed the connection to the Latvia-focused ones.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mStYNMht0Fg …
This page, focused on Kazakhstan, gave Sputnik as its URL.pic.twitter.com/LXM3yHH2KD
A lot of the posts were apolitical, and appropriate to the themes the pages claimed. This looked like audience-building, not direct political interference.pic.twitter.com/KFR6Sm4Py4
There was political content, though, especially in the Baltics, and focused on minority issues and NATO.pic.twitter.com/bXg2CnaHHq
Some of the personal accounts looked pretty fake, too. This one managed a cluster of pages in Georgia. Note the profile pics.pic.twitter.com/EmOnjAUKI1
All those pics came from elsewhere online: a Russian Google+ profile, a French hairdressing site, and a Swedish Instagram model.pic.twitter.com/yHgX3IuWNn
Its Christmas picture was taken from blogger @Hayley_Larue, of http://blondieinthecity.com .pic.twitter.com/ABkamXAHwB
Based on its own investigations, Facebook concluded: "Despite their misrepresentations of their identities, we found that these Pages and accounts were linked to employees of Sputnik." The open-source evidence points the same way. / Thread ends.
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