Experts have long suspected covert campaigns on Facebook and Instagram by the Saudi government. On Thursday, Facebook confirmed the allegation by the evidence they have found Saudi influence campaign. The evidence showed that the covert campaigns aimed to prop up support for the kingdom while attacking its enemies.
The announcement is Facebook’s first disclosure of its having found and takedown a covert influence campaign. Facebook did not name the people behind the campaign. It just said that the campaign was linked to the Saudi government.
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Facebook said that they have shared the information with law enforcement, industry partners, and policymakers. On the other hand, Saudi governments said that they have no knowledge of the extensive covert information.
Saudi Influence Campaign
The one behind the campaign ran an expensive operation involving hundreds of Facebook pages and accounts. They built fictitious personas. Moreover, all of those were well-resourced. They have spent more than $100,000 on ads on Facebook and Instagram. Furthermore, the pages involved in the campaign had more than one million followers.
These pages posed as local news websites. They target people in the Middle East and North Africa. The pages use personas made to look like locals from countries in those regions. To clarify, the pages and accounts posted about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s economic and social reform plan. Besides, the pages also portrayed Saudi armed forces in Yamen as a success. The pages also frequently shared criticism of neighboring countries including Iran, Qatar, and Turkey. They even question the credibility of the Al-Jazeera news network and Amnesty International.
Facebook Effort to Eliminate Covert Campaign
Over the past two years, Facebook has established a special team. The team aims to find and close down coordinated campaigns on the platform. That includes spreading disinformation and linked to nation-states.
Facebook mentioned that the team is formed since they do not want their service to be used to manipulate people. They take down pages, groups, and accounts based on their behavior.
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The company’s investigators possess accessed to IP addresses and email addresses. Besides, they can also access other indicators that they can use to determine who is behind a network of accounts.
Facebook said recent reporting from the investigative website Bellingcat helped the company identify the pages that it took down.
