Facebook said it has removed several pages and accounts that are said to be linked to the Ethiopian Information Network Security Agency (INSA).
“We removed 65 Facebook accounts, 52 Pages, 27 Groups, and 32 accounts on Instagram for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This network originated in and focused on domestic audiences in Ethiopia,” Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to the statement, the agency’s operation used duplicate and fake accounts — some of which were already detected and disabled by our automated systems — to post and comment on their own content, and manage Groups and Pages, including those posing as media entities.
The campaign appeared to accelerate their posting activity in 2020 and into 2021, and some of its recent content was rated false by independent fact-checkers and labeled as misleading. Some of the accounts went through significant name changes over time. They also used spam-like inauthentic distribution tactics to post the same content across multiple Pages and Groups simultaneously, including other people’s Groups.
The people behind this activity used fake accounts as a central part of their operations to mislead people about who they are and what they are doing, and that was the basis for our action. When we investigate and remove CIB operations, we focus on behavior rather than content, no matter who’s behind them, what they post, or whether they’re foreign or domestic.
MG/abj/APA