Influence Campaigns Linked To Iran, Russia Removed By Facebook

Facebook has identified and removed over 600 groups, pages and accounts that it says were part of campaigns to influence people in multiple countries, including the United States, the company said Tuesday. Facebook said it identified distinct campaigns and did not find a link or coordination between them but noted the campaigns used similar tactics.

According to Facebook, some of this activity originated in Iran and some originated in Russia. The news comes less than month after the company announced it had removed 32 pages from Facebook and Instagram reportedly involved in a "coordinated political influence campaign."

The announcement also came the same day Microsoft said it had discovered new Russian hacking efforts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

Facebook said the pages it removed targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The investigation began based on a tip from cybersecurity firm FireEye about "Liberty Front Press," a network of Facebook pages as well as accounts on other online services. Facebook says it was able to link the network to Iranian state media. Accounts linked to "Liberty Front Press" posed as news and civil society organizations and some of them attempted to hide their location, according to Facebook.

The accounts increased their focus on the U.K. and U.S. in 2017, Facebook said.

FireEye released its own analysis of the suspected influence campaign and said the activity they uncovered is significant. According to FireEye, narratives pushed by this campaign "include anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran, such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA)."

A second part of Facebook's investigation found links between "Liberty Front Press" and another set of accounts and pages that posed as news organizations, according to Facebook. The accounts and pages also attempted to hack accounts and spread malware, Facebook said, adding that it had disrupted such behavior earlier.

Facebook also identified a number of accounts and pages that shared content about Middle East politics in Arabic and Farsi, as well as political content in English related to the U.K. and the U.S. The investigation into these accounts expanded in July 2018 as Facebook stepped up efforts ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

Pages, groups and accounts linked to sources previously identified by the U.S. government as Russian military intelligence services were also removed. The activity by these accounts focused on politics in Syria and Ukraine and Facebook said it has not found activity by these accounts targeting the U.S.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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