Facebook in a recent announcement stated that it had closed down many pages, groups and accounts associated with Russia and engaged in Psyops before the Ukrainian elections.
After the investigation conducted by Facebook, it identified 4 campaigns that appear to be unrelated to each other, and three of them are linked to Russian hackers. One of the campaigns involved 18 Facebook accounts, 9 pages and three groups. The hackers tried to influence users in Ukraine about the relationship between the governments of Russia and Ukraine. In practice, this group created fake profiles, impersonating dead Ukrainian journalists. Furthermore, in order to increase their popularity, they used many fake accounts.
The worrying thing is that almost 80,000 accounts followed some of these pages and 10 accounts participated in at least one of the groups. The investigation conducted by Facebook showed that less than $100 was spent on ads that were displayed on the platform.
Another campaign detected by Facebook included 83 accounts, two pages, 29 groups and five Instagram accounts. This one was focused on Ukraine, and the hackers created fake accounts this time impersonating members of the country's military. Some of the groups were used to spread content about Ukraine and the Luhansk region.
Another campaign has been identified that mainly concerns geopolitical issues, focuses on Thailand and the US and appears to have been started by Russian hackers. Facebook closed 12 accounts and 10 pages from this campaign. The subject of their activity was to publish comments and opinions of prominent figures, which concerned the politics but also geopolitical issues. This campaign, as we mentioned, was also coordinated by hackers associated with a news agency funded by the Russian government, New Eastern Outlook. The investment in advertising on Facebook was under $.
Finally, Facebook shut down 181 accounts and 1,488 Facebook pages that were involved in activities in Honduras. The hackers aimed to increase the popularity of the country's prime minister by creating positive content about his political activity
