In an effort to combat internet propaganda, Facebook reported removing 40 accounts and nearly 50 pages and groups associated with ex-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on both Facebook and Instagram.
In total, the company removed 1,957 Facebook accounts and 707 Instagram accounts, as well as nearly 900 pages and groups worldwide as a part of its sweeping effort to fight against campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate across their apps.
As explained in a report published on Jan. 13, almost 100 accounts and over 130 pages and groups that originated in Ukraine were deleted from Facebook’s platforms in December for Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB).
Over a third of those accounts, pages, and groups were affiliated with Poroshenko, who served from 2014 until 2019, when President Volodymyr Zelensky defeated him by a landslide.
The ex-president’s reputation has been tainted by numerous accusations of paid PR, with media reporting about thousands of bots paid to post and comment in support of Poroshenko on Facebook.
In 2019, Kyiv Post revealed documents that showed Poroshenko’s media team regularly paying media publications, radio stations and bloggers to sway public opinion in his favor.
Read more: Poroshenko’s administration allegedly paid media, bloggers to sway public opinion
Now, Facebook said it has found fake accounts with links to individuals associated with Poroshenko’s party, European Solidarity, and nongovernmental organization Sprava Gromad, whose agenda directly supports the former president.
People behind the network used fake accounts to create fictitious personas who would manage pages and regularly post in groups. They also liked and shared content from the official pages of political parties and politicians, commenting on them “to make them appear more popular than they were,” the report says.
The network also posted materials supportive of Poroshenko, his party and its members, and Sprava Gromad, while criticizing Zelensky.
Some content was rated false by Facebook’s fact-checkers.
The advertising to promote these pages was paid for in rubles and U.S. dollars.
Another 42 Facebook and Instagram accounts unrelated to Poroshenko were deleted for violating the company’s foreign interference policy and CIB. This network of fake accounts originated parts of Luhansk Oblast occupied by Russia-backed militants. It targeted Belarus, UK, Germany, Spain, Russia and other countries, as well as Ukraine.
Accounts published materials about Russia’s victory in WWII, positive commentary about the Soviet Union and pro-Russian politicians in Moldova, while also criticizing U.S. election results.
A screenshot from Facebook’s report portraying one of the deleted posts that celebrated the Soviet victory in World War II.
Facebook’s investigation found this network’s links to Borotba, a radical leftist political group in Ukraine. About $4,000 in Facebook ad spending was also paid for in rubles and American dollars.
A third network of fake accounts identified in Ukraine partially posed as news sites.
Some were merely spam and inauthentic activity in support of local politicians in Odesa, including the infamous mayor of Odesa Gennady Truhanov, accused in the media of large-scale corruption and pro-Russian sympathies.
Fake pages also posted content critical of politicians such as Oleksandr Dubinsky and Ukraine’s Minister of Finance Serhiy Marchenko.
Individuals associated with the NGO Anti-Corruption Blockpost were behind the network, Facebook says.
Other countries that attracted Facebook’s crackdown included Argentina, which saw the removal of the biggest number of domestic accounts – over a thousand. These were inauthentically amplifying news stories related to the country’s Minister of Security.
Facebook reported removing accounts with origins in Russia, Ukraine, France, Indonesia, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Pakistan and Brazil.
