Facebook Shuts Down 150 Fake Chinese Accounts

Posted on the 23 September 2020 by Thiruvenkatam Chinnagounder @tipsclear
Facebook has shut down a network of more than 150 fake profiles linked to China for "coordinated" interference in political discussions.

While they are primarily concerned with supporting China's interests, some have also talked about the US presidential election.

It is only the second time that Facebook has identified fake accounts as originating in China.

The network had around 130,000 followers, although very few of those were in the United States.

The accounts began appearing in 2016, and most of the information was related to China's influence in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

They were traced to people based in Fujan province who were starting to pay for advertising in Chinese yuan, Facebook said.

Much of the content was in support of the Chinese state, such as promoting its interests in the disputed South China Sea.

But there was also criticism of China.

Some reports had published on US presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, before he quit the race, as well as others who supported eventual party candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

More recently Graphika, the social media analytics company Facebook asked to research accounts, found out

some have used an artificial intelligence technique known as GAN (Generative Adversarial Networks) to create credible but completely fake faces to address profiles.

Ben Nimmo, researcher at Graphika, tweeted: "A year ago this was new. Now it seems that every operation we analyze is trying at least once."

Facebook also removed a network of fake accounts originating in the Philippines that focused on national audiences and local news.

It was smaller, with just 57 Facebook accounts, 31 pages, and 20 Instagram accounts. In this case, links with the Philippine army and police were found.

They published local news and events and military activities against terrorism, as well as critiques of communism, youth activists and opposition parties in Filipino and English.

Analysis

By Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Anti-Disinformation Unit

Headlines from Facebook's latest round of takedowns will inevitably focus on Chinese efforts to interfere in the upcoming US elections. However, while this is a significant angle, it's important to keep things in perspective.

First, this was a small operation that had no large-scale impact before it was removed. The number of actual US voters who have come across its content is most likely negligible.

Secondly, only a small part of the content of the operation concerned the US elections. And even then, the content was not for or against a specific candidate.

Some of the content was in favor of President Trump, while some was in favor of Mr. Biden. A page criticizing Mr. Trump had no followers at all.

And third, most of the content was directly in line with China's strategic and geopolitical interests, particularly in the South China Sea.

It has become customary to associate Russia with foreign interference campaigns. But entities and governments around the world increasingly view information operations as a means of furthering their individual or national security interests.

This year alone, Facebook removed foreign interference campaigns from Iran, China, Ecuador, Iraq, Romania and even the United States.