Facebook has removed two unconnected networks of accounts, pages, and groups from its platforms Facebook and Instagram for engaging in Foreign and Government Interference (FGI), a type of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). These groups misrepresented their identities for their own political agendas inside and outside the US.
Foreign and Government Interference and Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior
According to Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's Head of Cybersecurity Policy, Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) "is when groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they're doing". He further explains that they take down networks because of deceptive behavior and not because of the contents they're sharing.
Foreign or Government Interference (FGI), or at times both, is a type of particularly egregious form of CIB. It is usually in the form of foreign-led efforts to manipulate public debate in another country, or operations run by a government to target its own citizens.
Facebook handles issues regarding CIB and FGI using sophisticated techniques performed by people and technology. Using technology to automatically detect and stop less sophisticated threats to Facebook, while security experts manually investigate more sophisticated behavior. These methods prevent the creation of fake accounts, including Facebook's new Video Selfie feature that uses facial recognition-based identity verification.
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Georgia Based Domestic Network
In a Facebook News article, Nathaniel Gleicher announced that Facebook removed 39 Facebook Accounts, 344 Facebook Pages, 13 Facebook Groups, as well as 22 Instagram Accounts used as a domestic CIB-network-based and focused on Georgia. The network was used to pose and impersonate political parties, public figures, activist groups, and more. The network was used to sway public opinion domestically in Georgia on political issues such as elections, government policies, and officials. The network was linked to Panda, an advertising agency based in Georgia, and relayed to the Georgian government.
US Based Domestic and International Network
An unrelated group consisting of 610 Facebook Accounts, 89 Facebook Pages, 156 Facebook Groups, as well as 72 Instagram Accounts were also removed. The network that originated in Vietnam and the US and focused on the US primarily. Although the group's activities included actions targeted at Vietnam, Spanish, and Chinese-speaking audiences globally. The network focused on The BL, a US-based media company, and used its fake accounts to drive traffic to the site as well as drive a pro-Trump narrative.
The network, "The Beauty of Life," is allegedly related to conservative news publisher The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times and its owner, The Epoch Media Group, is linked to China's banned spiritual group Falun Gong known for pushing pro-Trump propaganda.
To tackle this, Facebook worked with independent researchers Graphika and Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, DFRLab, to identify and take down the network. The researchers published a 39-page report detailing the use use of AI-generated profile photos to make their accounts appear like authentic Americans
AI-Generated Profile Photos
The fake Facebook accounts, masquerading as Americans, used AI-Generated Profile photos, photos of people who don't exist. General Adversarial Networks, a type of machine-learning algorithms, have been used for some time to create images that don't exist. Engineers used it from MIT and Google and even Facebook to open your eyes when you blink in a photo.
What is alarming, however, is its use in large-scale coordinated political attacks on public opinion. Deepfakes are a similar technology by which a person, often politicians such as President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are emulated in fake or manipulated videos. These videos feature them acting or saying things that they did not actually do,
While Facebook is celebrating a victory, the arms race of AI will continue to worsen. China has already banned Deepfakes and similar technologies.
