Social media giant Facebook has announced that it has taken down over 150 fake accounts run from China on its platform, which includes those posting about the US presidential election on November.
While Facebook said this was a small operation, it was the first time the firm publicly divulged details of an operation it discovered to be run from China, with accounts posting about the US 2020 election.
Facebook findings
Facebook’s head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the accounts they found “posted content both in support of and against presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.”
The company hired social media analytics firm Graphika to examine the network of accounts.
In its report, Graphika wrote: “In 2019-2020, the operation began running accounts that posed as Americans and posted a small amount of content about the US presidential election. Different assets supported President Donald Trump and his rival Joe Biden; one short-lived group supported former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.”
“The operation did not single out either candidate for preferential treatment. Many of the accounts in this phase of the operation were barely active,” the analytics company mentioned.
Facebook did not specify whether the accounts had any connection with the Chinese government but only said they were run from Fujian province in China.
However, it noted that the accounts had been posting about “Beijing’s interests in the South China Sea.” Graphika also stated that the accounts in the network had defended the Chinese government.
Gleicher pointed out that most of the activity of these accounts are focused on South East Asia and only a few talks about the US 2020 election.
Sense of urgency
While Facebook usually announces account takedowns on a monthly basis, this particular disclosure was a week or two earlier than scheduled.
Gleicher explained that due to the nature of the findings, “we thought that it was important that people should be aware of what we are seeing.”
Furthermore, Graphika reported that the Chinese operation started in late 2016 by posting about Taiwan and by 2018, it was posting about the Philippines and argued in favor of China and its influence in the region.
The network also created a collection of pages that defended China’s actions in the South China Sea.
When the operation started focusing on the US, Graphika said it “used fake accounts to pose as politically engaged users on both sides of the partisan divide.” However, the group did not build a viral following in the country.
Among the Facebook groups included in the operation was a group called Biden Harris 2020, which had 1,700 members.
However, Graphika pointed out: “The way that it set up pages and accounts to support Trump, Biden, and Buttigieg did not suggest an attempt to support one candidate.”
“It is possible that the intention was to further polarize America’s political landscape by affirming each side’s view of the other, but in that case, it is strange that the operation paid no attention to more progressive groups and candidates, such as senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren,” it added.
