Meta takes action against Chinese propaganda, shutters nearly 9,000 accounts
Meta has taken action against a Chinese spam network known as Spamouflage, closing roughly 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups, and pages. The company began its investigation in 2019 and collaborated with research groups such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. As a result, Meta took down 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 pages, 15 groups, and 15 Instagram accounts for violating its inauthentic behavior policy.
Spamouflage targeted multiple countries, platforms
Spamouflage targeted users in Australia, Taiwan, the United States of America, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Chinese-speaking audiences worldwide. Operating on over 50 platforms, including TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Blogspot, Livejournal, and X (formerly Twitter), the network primarily promoted glowing commentary about China and Xinjiang province. Spamouflage also criticized Western foreign policies and opponents of the Chinese government. However, the operation struggled to gain traction beyond its echo chamber due to inadequate quality control and unrelated acquired pages.
Posts were made to create a false sense of popularity
Several comments on Spamouflage posts were from other Spamouflage accounts, creating a false sense of popularity. The influence campaign spent approximately $3,500 (around Rs. 2.9 lakh) in ads on Facebook and had about 5,60,000 accounts following one or more of its pages. Meta's investigation revealed that several accounts seemed to be operating from a shared location with shift patterns corresponding to Beijing time.
