Facebook: FireEye researchers have proven that a social media campaign was fake. This happened in August and involved a network linked to Iran. In response, the company published the methods of deception used in the media to promote Iranian interests.
Many fake Facebook pages, accounts and groups were shut down, as well as some Instagram. This activity appears to have originated in Iran.
FireEye's investigation focused on Twitter of an English-language network created between April 2018 and March 2019. Twitter took down 2,800 accounts associated with this disinformation network, all of which originated in Iran.
FireEye stressed that the data it discovered did not come from the Iranian government but from groups associated with Iranian interests. Facebook, for its part, did not name who was behind the accounts and pages it identified, nor their motives.
The two companies monitor users who impersonate journalists and promote progressive and conservative news that they publish in the United States and Israel. This news is mainly anti-Israel, pro-Iranian nuclear weapons and condemning the President of the United States, Donald Trump. At the same time, of course, they also promote completely contradictory articles, pro-Trump with the ultimate goal of gaining more followers, being unpredictable and causing chaos.
As Lee Foster, who leads FireEye's intelligence team, said: "The sheer variety of tactics they're pursuing is alarming. The whole influence problem is a societal problem that we need to address collectively."
