The company said it has taken down five different networks with ties to China, a sign that the country could be ramping up its propaganda efforts ahead of the U.S. election.
China has become one of the most aggressive actors attempting to sway U.S. public opinion through fake accounts on social media, Meta said Thursday, despite still finding little success in those efforts.
In a quarterly report on inauthentic account behavior on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, Meta said it had taken down five distinct Chinese networks targeting foreign audiences this year, more than from any other country.
“For comparison, between 2017 and November 2020, we took down two networks from China, and both mainly focused on the Asia-Pacific region,” the company said in its report. “This represents the most notable change in the threat landscape, when compared with the 2020 election cycle.”
“Meta, knowing the FTC is about to ream them, fishes for goodwill”