1/ Today we announced three CIB takedowns linked to Russian actors — all three had very limited global following, and even more minimal following in the US. But we know that networks like these can pivot in the the weeks to come, so we’ll stay vigilant. about.fb.com/news/2020/09/r…
2/ These networks centered primarily around off-platform websites designed to look like independent or fictitious media organizations and attempted to engage unwitting people to write for them. This is similar to a Russian network we removed in August. about.fb.com/news/2020/09/a…
3/ This is a good reminder that threat actors — including from Russia — will continue to try to manipulate public debate globally and in the US, including by trying to trick journalists into doing their amplification for them.
4/ One threat we should all watch for are hack/leak operations — where an actor steals private documents, often manipulates them, and then releases them to influence public debate. We saw Russian actors use this technique in 2016, and should be prepared for them to try it again.
5/ Finally, I'd call out that these operations directly try to exploit competitive pressures across the media ecosystem. Journalists have a critical role in protecting 2020, but here it is particularly acute. We know these actors will try this again, so we all need to be ready.
6/ And here are five principles for covering potential hacked or leaked material just out from Marty Baron, exec editor at @washingtonpost. Among many great insights: "Our emphasis should be on making a sound and well-considered decision—not on speed." vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/m…

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More from @ngleicher

8 Oct
1/ Today we announced 10 CIB takedowns, including 6 networks we removed during the month of September, and 4 that we removed as recently as this morning. We had already announced most of the Sept networks. about.fb.com/news/2020/10/r…
2/More than half of these 10 networks targeted domestic audiences in their countries and many of them were linked to groups and people linked to politically affiliated actors in each country — the US, Myanmar, Russia, Nigeria, The Philippines and Azerbaijan.
3/ Half of the takedowns in this report began based on our own internal investigations, and the other half are based on information published/shared by external groups, including the FBI and investigative reporters.
Read 21 tweets
21 Jun
1/ There’s been an important debate today about an online campaign to inflate ticket sales at the Tulsa rally, and whether this constitutes deceptive behavior (cc @persily @evelyndouek). Based on public reporting, this isn’t CIB as we define it. #thread nytimes.com/2020/06/21/sty…
2/ First off, it’s critical to analyze this based on the behavior, not the content. However one might feel about the intent here, what was the behavior this campaign engaged in, and is that harmfully deceptive or simply coordinated?
3/ Second, I’m going to address this from a platform perspective. For FB, the key question would be: did the people behind it engage in on-platform behavior that systemically deceived users?
Read 10 tweets
5 May
1/ Today we published our 3rd monthly CIB report: we removed 8 networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior in April. about.fb.com/news/2020/05/a…
2/ Six of the eight networks were domestic and targeted audiences in their own countries — in the US, Georgia, Myanmar and Mauritania.
3/ Two of them were foreign and targeted audiences outside of their countries: We linked one to individuals in Russia, Crimea and the Donbass regions of Ukraine and two media firms in Crimea; another was linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Corporation.
Read 9 tweets
5 Jan
@DavidClinchNews @alexstamos Some rapid response systems exist and more could be built, but the broader point here is that for any sufficiently complex system, most unanticipated outcomes look strategic (complexity means observers infer intention), but many/most are actually the result of systemic entropy.
@DavidClinchNews @alexstamos Put another way: if something strange happens in a complex system, people often infer intent (it’s so sophisticated — they must have meant this to happen!), but often it’s an unintended result of the complexity itself. And this mismatch gets stronger for more complex systems.
@DavidClinchNews @alexstamos It’s almost a strange reformulation of the entropy in Murphy’s law: the more complex a system, the more opportunity for unintended consequences, AND the more likely observers will perceive those consequences as intentional.
Read 4 tweets
12 Nov 19
Good piece analyzing a recent Russian influence operation targeting Madagascar. The operation is linked to online assets we removed (and Stanford analyzed and helped expose) several weeks ago, but it's broader than that, and rife with incompetence. /thread nytimes.com/2019/11/11/wor…
Here's our takedown of the online operation: newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/10/r…
And here's Stanford's analysis (courtesy of @shelbygrossman, @alexstamos, and @noUpside): cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/prigoz…
Read 8 tweets

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