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The accounts “posted content both in support of and against presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, wrote in a post on the company’s website.
Graphika, a social media analytics company commissioned by Facebook to study the account network, wrote in its report on Tuesday: “In 2019-2020, the operation began running accounts posing as Americans and posted a small number of content on the US presidential election … Different assets supported President Donald Trump and his rival Joe Biden, a short-lived group supported former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg The operation did not select any of the candidates for preferential treatment. Many of the accounts at this stage of the operation were barely active. “
Facebook did not say whether the accounts were linked to the Chinese government, only that the accounts were managed from China’s Fujian province. Although the company noted that the accounts had been posting about “Beijing’s interests in the South China Sea.”
Graphika said that the accounts on the network had defended Beijing.
Gleicher emphasized that most of the activity was focused on Southeast Asia and only a small amount of activity was focused on the 2020 elections.
However, there was a sense of urgency in the Facebook announcement on Tuesday.
The company typically reports teardowns like this once a month; the next announcement won’t be for another week or two.
Gleicher told reporters Tuesday that given the nature of the company’s findings, “we thought it was important for people to be aware of what we are seeing.”
Ben Nimmo, Graphika’s head of investigations, told CNN: “The US-centric content was the last and last part of the operation. He led a group to support President Trump, Vice President Biden and Pete Buttigieg; all together, they had less than 2,000 members. Some of their fake accounts were not related to political content at all and instead liked US military content. Most of the US-centric assets were removed when they had a few months old, so they had no time to build a substantial audience. “
This is a news in development
