SiliconANGLE
by James Farrell
Facebook Inc. has cracked down on a misinformation campaign involving Saudi and other Middle Eastern authorities on its platform, the company said Thursday.
Accounts linked to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia, have been involved in what Facebook called “inauthentic behavior,” and in total 350 accounts and pages have been removed from the platform. Some accounts were also removed from Instagram.
“We found two separate operations: one of which originated in United Arab Emirates and Egypt, and another in Saudi Arabia,” Facebook said in a post. “The two campaigns we removed were unconnected, but both created networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing. We have shared information about our findings with law enforcement, industry partners and policymakers.”
The expunged accounts in United Arab Emirates and Egypt focused on the Middle East and North and East Africa, including Libya, Sudan, Comoros, Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Morocco. The accounts disseminated information under false names, sometimes pretending to be public figures.
“The Page admins and account owners posted about non-country specific topics like fashion, animals, humor and crafts,” Facebook said. “They also frequently posted about local news, politics, elections and topics including alleged support of terrorist groups by Qatar and Turkey, Iran’s activity in Yemen, the conflict in Libya, successes of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and independence for Somaliland.”
In total, all the inauthentic pages in the UAE and Egypt were followed by 13.7 million accounts and as many as 9,000 accounts joined the groups that had been removed. Facebook also reported that $167,000 had been spent on advertising, all paid for in either U.S. dollars or Emirati dirhams.
Some of the removed pages also hosted events, with 270 people expressing intent to go to at least one of those events. Facebook added that it didn’t know if the events actually occurred or how many people turned up.
Some 217 Facebook accounts, 144 Facebook Pages, five Facebook Groups and 31 Instagram accounts, were linked to the Saudi campaign. This was focused mainly on the Middle East and Northern Africa, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
According to Facebook, “The Page admins and account owners typically posted in Arabic about regional news and political issues, including topics like the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, his economic and social reform plan ‘Vision 2030,’ and successes of the Saudi armed forces, particularly during the conflict in Yemen.”
Around 1.4 million people followed those accounts and in total $108,000 was spent on advertising, paid for in Saudi riyal and U.S dollars.
