According to reports, Facebook and Twitter said on Thursday that they had destroyed more than a dozen false information dissemination networks that were supported by political groups or had official backgrounds in many countries to prevent their platform users from being deceived.
The two companies stated in their separate statements that they have frozen more than 3,500 accounts that used false identities and other deceptive practices to spread false or misleading information.
This network targets users in multiple countries, including the United States. The US government has warned that foreign governments are trying to influence the results of the presidential election in November this year.
Facebook and Twitter failed to prevent Russia from interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and were bombarded for it. Because of this, the two companies announced a series of measures to combat false information before this year’s presidential election.
Both of these social media companies have cooperated with US law enforcement agencies to track and destroy political propaganda campaigns targeting American voters. These organizations are all accused of having ties with foreign governments, mainly Iran and Russia.
However, the Iranian and Russian governments have repeatedly denied relevant allegations.
The sphere of influence of the networks destroyed on Thursday is not limited to the US presidential election. Facebook and Twitter stated that they targeted netizens in at least 16 other countries or regions, including Azerbaijan, Nigeria and Japan.
Twitter stated that five of these networks are related to the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Thailand, and Russia.
“Our goal of disclosing this information is to allow the public to further understand which methods these countries use to abuse and undermine open democratic dialogue.” The company said in a statement.
Facebook said that the company found a total of 10 networks, some of which have been publicly disclosed before. These networks are mainly related to political groups targeting democratic audiences, including the Myanmar military and youth forces of the ruling party in Azerbaijan.
“Such deceptive activities will blur the line between healthy public debate and human manipulation, and cause extremely complex issues,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s director of cybersecurity policy.
Facebook also blocked a US marketing company called Rally Forge, which previously worked with the conservative activist organization Turning Point USA and the self-proclaimed environmental protection organization Inclusive Conservation Group.
The account controlled by Rally Forge tried to influence public opinion by posting a large number of posts in the news comment section of the famous media.
The Washington Post once reported that Turning Point USA published spam-style political content and published more than 4,500 tweets containing identity content in a short period of time. Twitter had frozen 20 related accounts at that time, and Facebook also said it would investigate this behavior.
Turning Point USA stated that the allegation is related to an independent entity. The company said in a statement: “Facebook’s communications team has discovered this error.”
Rally Forge and President Jake Hoffman (Jake Hoffman) have yet to comment. Inclusive Conservation Group has not yet responded.
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