After receiving a tip from the FBI, Facebook uncovered that associates of the notorious St. Petersburg troll group, associated with Russia’s attempt to undermining the 2016 U.S. presidential election, are trying to target Americans once again, outlets report.
The group used fake personas with authentic-looking computer-generated photos of people, a host of Facebook accounts and pages that showed little activity at the time it was removed, and a site that was created to appear and run similar to a left-wing new outlet, reports continue.
The evidence is believed to be proof that Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll group, is manipulating Americans in an attempt to cause disarray in the 2020 election. However, the operation appeared to be shut down before it could cause any harm.
Facebook credits technical indicators for connecting the IRA to this operation.
“This looks like an early-stage attempt to target left-wing audiences on a range of issues,” Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at a social media analytics company commissioned by Facebook to study the influence operation, told CNN.
” The [U.S.] election wasn’t the only focus,” he added, noting that the content had gained little traction online, “but it looks like the operation wanted to divide Democratic voters, the same way the IRA tried in 2016.”
Part of the operation that was exposed involved “Peace Data,” a site that portrays itself as “independent leftwing new outlets” that highlight stories about former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S foreign policy, Donald Trump, and the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Only a small handful of the site’s articles referenced 2020 U.S. election candidates, but reports show that some of their headlines included “The Biden-Harris Ticket Encapsulates How the Western Left Will Give in to Right-Wing Populism” and “The Trump administration is continuing its relentless war on nature.”
Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, told CNN that it was evident that associates of the IRA were “actively, aggressively, and creatively trying to target the United States in the run-up to the [2020] election.”
To appear authentic, the site used fake identities for individuals listed as editors for Peach Data. The profile photos for these pages were designed using artificial intelligence technology, according to Graphika and Facebook. The technology is similar to what is used to create deep fake videos.
Graphika reportedly pointed to an individual identified through a Twitter profile. Facebook shared this information with Twitter, and the social media platform suspended the account of the person identified.
Later on, Twitter said, “We suspended five Twitter accounts for platform manipulation that we can reliably attribute to Russian state actors.” It specified the accounts were linked to Peace Data and added, “The Tweets from the Russian-linked accounts were low quality and spammy, and most Tweets from these accounts received few, if any, Likes or Retweets.” Twitter also said that links to Peace Data would be blocked from its platform going forward.
With platforms such as Facebook and the FBI now aware of the tactics trolls like the ones involved in the latest election operation, Gleicher said, it will be harder for private social media operations to accumulate huge followings. It is obvious that Russians are “really aggressively trying to find a path in to have an impact, and they are failing,” he said.
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