On Tuesday, May 28, 2019, Facebook announced that it took down a network of 51 Facebook user accounts, 36 Facebook pages that had 21,000 users, 7 Facebook groups that had a total of 1,900 members and 3 Instagram accounts that had 2,600 followers. Facebook claims that all of them were involved in "inauthentic behavior" that originated from Iran.
Facebook's information comes from FireEye, a California cybersecurity company, which has tracked Iran-linked accounts and Iran-linked networks. They reported links with 2,800 Twitter accounts created between April 2018 and March 2019, that were removed at the beginning of May 2019.The campaigns that FireEye has been tracking largely focused on anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and anti-Saudi stances, which aligns with Iranian state policies.
Facebook has reported observing similar positions and content in the Facebook accounts and Facebook pages they took down.
FireEye also saw social media accounts promoting the Iran nuclear deal, and condemning numerous Trump administration actions, including the White House's decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.
Occasionally, the same accounts flipped their stand and promoted pro-Trump and anti-Iran messaging, in an attempt to get more followers and promote chaos.
Some of the fake Twitter accounts had been set up to specifically impersonate politicians, including a handful of Republican candidates for the House of Representatives in 2018.
In September 2018, a Twitter account was created to look like California 9th Congressional District candidate Marla Livengood. The bad actor copied the text from some of Marla Livengood's real tweets so the new Twitter account would look as legitimate as possible.
These are classic deception techniques meant to cause chaos among Americans and blow up tempers on social media by publishing and promoting fake news.
Our Commentary
Why are people getting away with making fake social accounts to publish statements (regardless if slanderous or not) about the people presently serving in office, spread more false news, impersonate government entities, senators, congressmen and congresswomen, and even a US President?
First, because they can. Anyone can make a social media account and pass the security measures to open it.
Secondly, Americans are simply ripe for the picking.
American society is in such a tremendous state of flux - politically, financially and socially - that they are grasping at any lifeline trying to make sense of it all. Occasionally they support the wrong guy but that's because they are being influenced by bad actors who fill the heads of citizens with fake news and hate news. Citizens are receptive because half of them are pissed off at current events and the people who are in power. The other half want so much to believe that the people in power are doing the right thing. And neither side knows what to believe.
The United States has not seen this degree of unrest since the 1940s during World War II when propaganda was at its highest.
If you think about the end result that the bad actors expect to accomplish, you might agree that what is going on now is really no different than what was going on in the 1940s with circulating fake news, pitting citizen against citizen, and infiltrating our government networks.
The only things that are different today are the tools and the devices that are in use.
As for social media trying to locate, rein in or shut down the bad actors, Facebook can close 21,000 accounts on Monday and by Friday, inevitably there will be twice as many new accounts to replace them.
Regarding security breaches and hacking of social media accounts, there will always hacked accounts and security breaches, just as there will always be people who continue to create fake social media accounts. As long as the present social media models are in existence, the cycle will be never-ending.
As always, the tools will get better as the toys get bigger.
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