Facebook removes fraudulent Iranian accounts

Facebook has removed dozens of accounts, pages and groups
that had thousands of followers that were created by Iranians in the hope of
swaying public opinion during the 2018 election cycle.

The social media giant said on May 28 it had removed 51
accounts, 36 pages and seven groups from Facebook, along with three Instagram
accounts that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior, which is
Facebook-speak for groups of pages or people using the site working together to
mislead others about who they are and what they are doing, according to Nathaniel
Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy.

About 21,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages,
about 1,900 accounts joined one or more of the groups and 2,600 people followed
one or more of these Instagram accounts.

“They purported to be located in the US and Europe, used
fake accounts to run Pages and Groups, and impersonated legitimate news
organizations in the Middle East. The individuals behind this activity also
represented themselves as journalists or other personas and tried to contact
policymakers, reporters, academics, Iranian dissidents and other public
figures,” Gleicher wrote
this week.

Facebook gave a hat tip to FireEye for its work in digging into these fraudulent accounts. The security company first disclosed these issues in 2018, but recently saw a new crop of influence peddling sites pop up. FireEye assessed only with “low confidence” that the campaign was organized in support of Iranian interests.

“In addition to utilizing fake American personas that
espoused both progressive and conservative political stances, some accounts
impersonated real American individuals, including a handful of Republican
political candidates that ran for House of Representatives seats in 2018,” FireEye
wrote.

FireEye at this time does not see a connection between this most recent activity and what was spotted last year, but noted the accounts were promoting material similar to what was being posted in 2018.

Iran is not the only nation causing problems for Facebook.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on May 29 expressed her displeasure with the company
for allowing video of her that was edited to make her appear drunk to remain on
its site, according to KQED
News. Pelosi said the fact that Facebook knows the videos in question are
fake and has not removed them from the far right Facebook accounts brings into
question whether or not Facebook was manipulated, as it contends, when it comes
to Russian influence in the 2016 election.

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