Facebook has removed fake accounts that were attempting to amplify each other’s content with the ultimate goal of promoting Roger Stone’s public image . According to Facebook, the fake accounts were managed by “Roger Stone and his associates.”
In total, Facebook banned and removed 54 accounts, 50 pages and 4 Instagram due to their participation in what the platform described as “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
The accounts posted content with political themes and then liked and commented on the posts of other accountsin order to trick Facebook's algorithms and increase the visibility of their content.
The accounts and pages were allegedly used by Florida residents. However, Facebook said the accounts were fake and operated by people associated with Roger Stone, a former adviser to Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign.
The social network said the accounts were active from 2015 to 2017.They were later deactivated.
When active, the accounts and pages published content about local politics in Florida, while there were also articles about Roger Stone and, later, his trial in the US.
In addition, the pages promoted information from Wikileaks, prior to the 2016 US elections, obtained after a breach of the DNC (the governing body of the US Democratic Party).
According to Facebook, Roger Stone's pages had about 260,000 followers, while his Instagram accounts had about 61,500.
However, the social network noticed that some of Roger Stone's Facebook pages had acquired followers from Pakistan and Egypt to boost their popularity and visibility.
The platform said it discovered this network recently as it was trying to prevent the registration of individuals who are members of the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist organization in the US.
Facebook banned and removed pages and accounts managed by Proud Boys in 2018.
The Proud Boys had previously claimed that Roger Stone was one of its members and that it often used members of the organization as bodyguards.
Additional details about this network of fake accounts are also available in this report [PDF].
