the ban on 84 Facebook accounts, 6 pages, 9 groups and 14 Instagram accounts, citing policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. Their activity originated in France and targeted mainly the Central African Republic and Mali, but also Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Cote d Ivoire and Chad - all former French colonies in Africa.
About 5,000 or so accounts followed the banned pages, along with 1,600 accounts in the banned groups and about 200 followers on Instagram, according to Facebook s head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher and Global Threat Disruption Lead David Agranovich.
It was reportedly the first time a Western troll network has been fingered by the Menlo Park behemoth, which until now focused primarily on politically-driven hunts for Russian meddling.
Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
Facebook said it removed hundreds of accounts from Russian and French troll networks focused on influencing opinion and politics throughout Africa.
At least one network also had a presence on Twitter, which took action on a small number of accounts based on close coordination with our peers, a Twitter spokesperson said on Wednesday.
In Central African Republic, networks from France and Russia interacted, criticizing each government s policies in the country.
That was the first time our team found two campaigns – from France and Russia – actively engage with one another, said Facebook s security team in a blog post.
The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it
By Craig Timberg & Ellen Nakashima The Washington Post
Published Dec. 16, 2020
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Facebook and Twitter have been removing military troll networks, including Russian and French campaigns that were sparring over politics in Africa
Facebook and Twitter have been removing military troll networks, including Russian and French campaigns that were sparring over politics in Africa
Kevin ShalveyDec 16, 2020, 18:21 IST
Facebook s security team said its investigation found links associated with French military.Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters
Facebook said it removed hundreds of accounts from Russian and French troll networks focused on influencing opinion and politics throughout Africa.
At least one network also had a presence on Twitter, which took action on a small number of accounts based on close coordination with our peers, a Twitter spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Print article WASHINGTON When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably in the spring, they sat dormant for days, doing nothing but hiding. Then the malicious code sprang into action and began communicating with the outside world. At that moment when the Russian malware began sending transmissions from federal servers to command-and-control computers operated by the hackers an opportunity for detection arose, much as human spies behind enemy lines are particularly vulnerable when they radio home to report what they’ve found. Why, then, when computer networks at the State Department and other federal agencies started signaling to Russian servers, did nobody in the U.S. government notice that something odd was afoot?