Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Meta says it has disrupted a sophisticated Russian influence operation that operated across its own social platforms, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, and even LiveJournal.
In a new report on removing coordinated inauthentic behavior, Meta says that the influence campaign originated in Russia and involved a “sprawling” network of more than 60 fake websites. In a bid for borrowed credibility, some of those sites impersonated mainstream European news outlets like Der Spiegel, The Guardian and Bild.
Social media accounts within the network shared spoofed articles from these news outlets, mostly criticizing Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees or arguing against sanctions placed on Russia. Content in the spoofed…