According to a new investigation, some accounts linked to the terrorist group ISIS still exist on Facebook, unnoticed by the platform.
The research, conducted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), uncovered some 288 accounts linked to a specific ISIS network over a three-month period. These accounts were able to find loopholes in Facebook’s automated and manual systems and were able to spread their propaganda.
The network is called Fuouaris Upload. According to the researchers who discovered it, many of the accounts had thousands of followers, with about a third of them being managed by the same user, known as “Luqmen Ben Tachafin.”
How did the accounts manage to avoid detection?
ISIS Facebook accounts had been used for illegal activities such as account hijacking, content disclosure, coordinated raids on Facebook pages, hashtag violations, and more. The videos shared by the group managed to garner more than 34,000 views in total.
Some of the videos were aimed at other terrorists, teaching them how to exploit Facebook's security protocols and accounts. In addition, researchers discovered a video describing how to create a bomb on an account that appeared to be from Indonesia.
To avoid detection by Facebook, the account creators make several modifications to their content, changing their text or using punctuation, blurring the ISIS brand, and using effects in their videos.
According to the study, the ISIS network on Facebook planned and attempted “raids” on popular Facebook pages, some of which belonged to US. One of them was on the page of US President Donald Trump.
Facebook said most of the accounts have been removed and the rest are under review.
“We do not tolerate terrorist propaganda on our platform and remove content and accounts that violate our policies as soon as we identify them,” a Facebook spokesperson said. However, as the researchers note, Facebook needs to be more effective and continually update its moderation policies.
