Facebook is about to announce that it has found evidence of a coordinated political influence campaign making use dozens of fake accounts and pages on its platform, in advance of the November midterm elections, according to a New York Times report.
The company reportedly told lawmakers in a series of briefings this week that it had discovered the influence campaign as it watched for election interference efforts.
Similar to the Russian interference campaign in 2016, the newly discovered activity reportedly focuses on issues like the #AbolishICE movement to shut down U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In the briefings, Facebook also said that it had found attempts to manipulate its platform after the elections, including around the time of the Unite The Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last summer.
Facebook is working with the FBI on the matter.
(NY Times) In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week, the company told lawmakers that it detected the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It has been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two of the officials.
Ouch. No Russian collusion? We’re sure that narrative will change.
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