Facebook on Tuesday said it has shut down a disinformation operation that enlisted social media influencers to spread false claims on the use of COVID-19 vaccines including their adverse impact.
Labeling the operation a “disinformation laundromat”, the leading social network said that the campaign sought to legitimize false claims by pushing them through people with clean reputations.
According to Facebook, the influencers who caught onto the sham turned out “to be the undoing of a deceitful influence campaign orchestrated by marketing firm Fazze in Russia.”
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Facebook global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo said the campaign was launched on the assumption that influencers wouldn’t do any of their “own homework, but two did.” He said that the incident also serves as a warning for people to be careful “when someone is trying to spoon-feed you a story.”
The company said July it removed 65 accounts Facebook and 243 accounts at photo-centric Instagram that were linked to the campaign and has also banned Fazze, which is a subsidiary of AdNow, an advertising company registered in Britain, from its platform.
According to Facebook the campaign targeted primarily India and Latin America, but also took aim at the United States as governments debated approving vaccines to fight the pandemic.
Facebook reported that last year a network of fake accounts tried to spread a false meme that the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 would turn people into chimpanzees. It added that after going quiet for five months the organizers attacked the safety of the Pfizer vaccine and leaked what it billed as an AstraZeneca document stolen by hacking.
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The campaign was also active on online platforms including Reddit, Medium, Change.org, and Facebook.
The operation was exposed by influencers in France and Germany who questioned claims made in email pitches from Fazze that led the journalists to dig into the matter.
Facebook head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the security team at the social network has seen a trend of deceptive influence operations targeting social media platforms by recruiting established personalities with followings to spread false messages. (AW)
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