We have a new report on a network that Facebook found & suspended, attributed to individuals associated with Jordanian military. The network had a small presence on TikTok & leveraged Clubhouse discussions. 🧵⤵️
🔗cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/jordan…
Substantively, the network praised Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the country’s military.
We found 3 TikTok accounts tied to the network. We think this is the 1st known case of TikTok coordinated inauthentic behavior, but it was anti-climatic. The accounts re-posted content from Jordanian Air Force TikTok fan accounts & had low engagement & few followers.
Facebook network assets shared a video which played a recording from a Clubhouse chat about Prince Hamzah, a royal family member who fell out of favor with the King. The video accused foreigners of using Clubhouse as part of “fourth generation social media warfare.”
The network shared other original videos. Many bolstered the state-supported narrative that Basem Awadallah and Prince Hamzah collaborated to destabilize the country.
After Prince Hamzah was arrested in early April, the government banned people from discussing the investigation. We saw a spike in posting during this media blackout, with posts praising the government.
Many posts seems designed to reduce support for ISIS among young people in Jordan, with videos criticizing ISIS’ interpretation of Islam. Note: The network was suspended due to the reliance on fake accounts, not due to the content of the posts.
The network shared posts to out-of-network Groups...sometimes fairly conspicuously.
And oddly several of the suspended profiles had photos of Nick Offerman from his role as Ron Swanson on Parks & Rec.
Last, while we didn’t have visibility into this aspect of the network, Facebook reports that the network was used to harass dissidents.
These reports are a group effort by our hard working @stanfordio team. This report is authored by @shelbygrossman, @elenacryst, @noupside, K.H., @carlymil, @RajeevNSharma, @ChaseSmall5, & @ladya7823.
github.com/stanfordio/pub…
Report from @fbnewsroom ⤵️
about.fb.com/news/2021/07/j…
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