Topline
Fb on Monday stated it had taken down a number of faux accounts, pages and teams that had been participating in a disinformation marketing campaign concentrating on Ukraine whereas issuing a warning about elevated concentrating on of Ukrainian army and public figures by hackers because the Russian invasion of the nation entered its fifth day.
Pretend accounts posing as information web sites tried to publish claims about Ukraine being a failed state … [+]
Key Info
In a statement, the corporate stated within the earlier 48 hours it had found a “comparatively small community” of round 40 accounts, pages and teams on Fb and Instagram primarily based in Russia and Ukraine which had been violating its coverage in opposition to “coordinated inauthentic conduct.”
These faux accounts posed as unbiased web sites, created faux identities utilizing profile footage generated by synthetic intelligence methods and operated throughout a number of platforms together with Twitter, YouTube, Telegram and Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and VK.
These faux accounts posed as information editors, engineers and scientists and ran web sites publishing claims in regards to the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state, Fb stated.
Fb additionally warned that it was seeing elevated concentrating on of Ukrainians together with public and army figures by the hacker group Ghostwriter utilizing fraudulent emails to realize entry to a consumer’s social media accounts.
The corporate stated it detected hacked Fb accounts getting used to publish YouTube movies displaying Ukrainian troops surrendering to Russia.
Fb is urging all of its customers in Russia and Ukraine to take further steps to safe their on-line accounts and shield themselves from hackers.
Key Background
Final week, Fb announced that it’ll forestall Russian state media shops from working advertisements or creating wealth off its platform globally following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The corporate additionally famous that it’ll start making use of labels to content material printed by these state-sponsored shops. On Sunday, Fb said it had agreed to a request by the Ukrainian authorities to limit a number of accounts inside Ukraine, together with sure Russian state media accounts. Following these strikes, the Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor threatened to limit entry to Fb inside Russia, a risk which it seems to have followed through on.
Additional Studying
Twitter and Facebook restricted in Russia amid conflict with Ukraine (Netblocks)
Facebook-owner Meta says Ukraine’s military, politicians targeted in hacking campaign (Reuters)