Facebook Says It Removed Six Domestic Networks of Fake Accounts

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. said domestic groups are copying the misinformation strategies Russia used ahead of the 2016 election, cultivating networks of fake accounts to amplify their messages on social media.

In April, six of the eight networks Facebook removed for coordinated inauthentic posts targeted domestic audiences in the U.S., Mauritania, Myanmar and the country of Georgia, the social network said in a blog post on Tuesday. Two of the networks were in the U.S.: one set of pages and accounts associated with the fringe conspiracy group QAnon, and another with VDARE, a website known for posting anti-immigrant content. It's Facebook's first action against QAnon, the group that believes there is a “deep state” conspiracy against President Donald Trump.

In the company's monthly report on coordinated inauthentic behavior on its network, Facebook executives emphasized that the groups were removed not for their content, but for breaking rules against using fake accounts and automated sharing. Like Russia did in 2016, the groups are taking advantage of debates in society to amplify their messages to a broader audience. The difference this year is that the domestic groups have another topic to use as leverage to spread their content: coronavirus. Though the groups were created before the Covid-19 outbreak, they're posting about it to keep audiences interested.

“It was fairly opportunistic,” Nathaniel Gleicher, the head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, said on a call with media. “They had goals that were unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Facebook said it found the QAnon and VDARE fake accounts as it was investigating behavior intended to influence the November election.

Overall for the month, Menlo Park, California-based Facebook said it removed 732 accounts on its main social network, 793 pages, 200 groups and 162 Instagram accounts.