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Russia, Iran Leading Disinformation Charge on Facebook

Jeff Seldin

   Russia and Iran are leading the way when it comes to pushing bad
   information on one of the world's most popular social media platforms,
   and new analysis finds they are getting savvier at evading detection.

   [1]Facebook issued a reportWednesday looking at so-called coordinated
   inauthentic behavior over the past four years, warning that despite
   ongoing efforts to identify and remove disinformation networks, there
   is no let-up in attempts to exploit or weaponize conflict and crisis.

   "Threat actors have adapted their behavior and sought cover in the gray
   spaces between authentic and inauthentic engagement and political
   activity," according to the Facebook report, which looked at the more
   than 150 networks from more than 50 countries that its security teams
   took down from 2017 to 2020.

   "We know they will continue to look for new ways to circumvent our
   defenses," the report added, noting disinformation efforts were evenly
   split between foreign and domestic efforts.

     "Domestic IO also continues to push the boundaries of acceptable
     online behavior worldwide" per [2]@Facebook "About half of the
     influence operations we've removed since 2017--including in
     [3]#Moldova, [4]#Honduras, [5]#Romania, [6]#UK, US, [7]#Brazil &
     [8]#India--were conducted by locals..."
     [9]pic.twitter.com/e2pLpgLNaJ
     -- Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) [10]May 26, 2021

   Russia, Iran influence efforts

   Overall, Russia was the biggest purveyor of disinformation, according
   to the analysis, with 27 identified influence operations during the
   four-year timeframe. Of those, 15 were connected to the St.
   Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) or other entities