Russia hits Meta with spam as Ukraine conflict takes on a tech dimension

When more sophisticated influence efforts at Facebook and Instagram were stopped, Russia has turned to spammer techniques to promote propaganda for the Ukraine war, Meta said in a report on Thursday. According to the threat analysis from Meta, tactics have included establishing phoney versions of reputable news outlet websites at identical online addresses and using thousands of false accounts to disrupt online discussions on the war.

The tech giant asserted that state media, like as TASS and Sputnik, have been substantially less active over the past year, and that there has been less engagement with their material on Facebook and Instagram. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a supporter of President Putin and the creator of the notorious bot-farm known as the Internet Research Agency, suffered the same fate after Meta traced and shut down a large number of his companies' bogus accounts.

"Sophisticated Russian influence operations" 

“We've caught and exposed more of their influence operations than any other threat actor in the world. As a result, we've seen them shift some of their efforts away from our platform,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Meta. "This activity bears a closer resemblance to what you might see from a spammer's playbook rather than the more stealthy and sophisticated Russian influence operations we have disrupted in the past," Gleicher added. 

To reveal deception campaigns, Meta shares what it discovers with researchers and other social networks, he continued. Gleicher later added that Meta took action when Russia invaded Ukraine one year ago this week to stop state news organisations from misrepresenting the conflict or profiting from them.

According to Meta, user engagement with false information published by the Russian state news agency decreased by more than 80%. "Although overt participation by Russian state-controlled media on our platforms has dropped, attempts at covert involvement have increased substantially," said Nick Clegg, head of worldwide affairs at Meta. 

He added that last year Meta shut down two Russian undercover influence initiatives that attempted to sway online debates about the conflict by posting responses from legions of fictitious identities.

"Rather than trying to build up convincing fake personas these campaigns resembled smash-and-grab operations that use thousands of fake accounts across social media, not just our platforms, in an attempt to overwhelm the conversation with their content," Clegg said.

Both operations targeted many social media platforms, including Telegram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, Meta reported. Those operations continue to try to revive ousted fake accounts, according to Gleicher "There's almost a bit of desperation around this effort; they're not having a lot of success," he said.