Ukraine, Russia news: Facebook bans pro-Russian network, Ukraine account hijacks
Ukraine, Russia news: Meta Platforms Inc. found and disabled a disinformation network that operated accounts, groups and pages targeting Ukraine across its social networks, the company said late Sunday. The company also identified a number of Ukrainian public figures whose accounts were compromised by Ghostwriter, a known threat actor with a history of spreading Kremlin-friendly propaganda.
Meta has seen an uptick in targeting of Ukrainian users with disinformation and attempts to hijack accounts over the past few days as the nation grapples with an invasion by Russian military forces. With the conflict taking center stage in global news, Meta has “amplified” its cybersecurity team with a special operations center and is “taking rapid and proactive steps to change the situation on-platform and make things safer,” Nathaniel Gleicher, its head of security policy, said on a conference call.
The Facebook operator identified a breach of its coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) policy over the past 48 hours that manifested in fake personas posting links and content suggesting Western nations had betrayed Ukraine or that Ukraine was a failed state. The cross-platform operation spanned Twitter, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, Telegram and Russian social network VK as well as websites posing as independent news outlets. The fake accounts claimed to be based in Kyiv and included fictitious news editors and a former aviation engineer, while their profile photos appeared to have been generated with the help of artificial intelligence software, the company said.
Meta coordinated with other social networks and disrupted the campaign when its Facebook pages had fewer than 4,000 followers and its reach on Instagram was at less than 500
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