On Tuesday, Facebook said it derailed a fledgling deception campaign aimed at the US that was trying to gain momentum ahead of the presidential election next week.
The decision came after Mexico posted in English and Spanish on topics including racial injustice; feminism and the environment, using a small bit of content posted in the past by the Russian Internet Research Agency.
Facebook did not link the campaign to Russia, saying it had so far only traced control to unspecified people in Mexico.
The network began creating accounts in April, hiding identities and intent of those involved, according to Facebook head of security integrity Nathaniel Gleicher.
It had only grown to two Facebook Pages and 22 Instagram accounts, according to Facebook.
Gleicher said: “Some of these accounts posed as Americans supporting various social and political causes and tried to contact other people to amplify this operation’s content.”
Each of the networks had few accounts and negligible numbers of followers in what Gleicher said was a sign of Facebook’s success at catching such campaigns quicker.
Catching coordinated deceit efforts faster has triggered a shift in tactics to trying to create a false impression that interference in voting or politics is more pervasive than it actually is, according to Gleicher.
Gleicher said: “We see malicious actors attempt to play on our collective expectation of wide-spread interference to create the perception that they’re more impactful than they in fact are. We call it perception hacking an attempt to weaponize uncertainty to sow distrust and division.”
He said: “It’s important that we all stay vigilant, but also see these campaigns for what they are – small and ineffective.”
Gleicher said: “This small network originated in Iran and focused primarily on the US and Israel.”
