February 27, 2023
In a quarterly threat report, Meta stated that Russian state media outlets “significantly reduced their activity on our platforms” during the first year of the war, preferring to use alternatives such as Telegram.
The report provides an overview of the various types of threats that Meta has been dealing with, such as fake accounts, hate speech, and misinformation, as well as the steps they have taken to combat them. It also emphasizes adversaries’ increasing use of advanced technologies and the need for continuous innovation to stay ahead of them. The report also mentions Meta’s collaboration with law enforcement and other organizations to address these challenges.
Meta attributed this to new measures implemented by the company at the start of the war to limit the reach of Russian state-sponsored media. Accounts belonging to three Russian state media outlets were banned as a result of their failure to comply with Meta’s policies on political advertising and transparency. Sputnik, RT, and RIA Novosti are among the outlets affected.
According to the report, Meta has taken down two disinformation networks centered on the Ukraine conflict in the last year. Both primarily targeted Ukrainian users. The two campaigns, dubbed “Cyber Front Z” and “Doppelganger,” had more accounts, groups, and pages associated with them than any other Meta campaign since 2017.
“We’re providing a view into the risks we see across multiple policy violations including coordinated inauthentic behavior and mass reporting, in addition to an update on our work against influence operations — both covert and overt — in a year since Russia began its full-scale war against Ukraine.”
The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.
