Facebook said on Tuesday it has deleted a network of accounts from Russia related to marketing companies that aim to request influencers to drive anti-vaccine content about Jab Covid-19.
Social media companies say it has prohibited accounts connected to Fazze, a subsidiary of marketing companies registered in the UK, which mainly carried out operations from Russia, for violating their policies against foreign interference.
Facebook said the campaign uses its platform mainly to target audiences in India, Latin America and, to smaller limits, the United States.
The company’s researchers called the campaign “Laundromat Disinformation,” creating misleading articles and petitions on forums such as reddit, medium and change.org, and using fake accounts on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to strengthen content.
Facebook says while most campaigns fall flat, the core seems to be involved with paid influencers and this post is interesting “some limited attention.” False claims and conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and their vaccines have breeded on social media sites in recent months.
The main technology company like Facebook has been criticized by the government of US Parliamentarians and President Joe Biden, who said the spread of lies online about vaccines made it more difficult to fight a pandemic.
Facebook said that the operation related to Russia began with the creation of a collection of false accounts by 2020, the possibility of acting agriculture in Bangladesh and Pakistan, which poses based in India.
It was said that the network posted memes and comments on the platform in November and December 2020 claimed the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine would change people to chimpanzees, often using scenes from the film “Planet Apes” 1968.
Along with this “Spammy” campaign, Facebook said a number of health and The welfare of influencers on Instagram also shared tags and petitions used by the campaign.
It is said that this is probably part of the operating tactics known to work with influencers.
Facebook said that in May 2021, after five months inactive, the operation then began to question the security of the Pfizer vaccine by pushing the suspected astrazeneca document “hacked and leaked”.
The Facebook investigator said two phases of activity coincided with the period when several governments reportedly discussed emergency authorization for vaccines.
According to media reports, Fazze contacted influencer on YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok in several countries to ask them to encourage anti-vaccine content for payments, but two French and German influencers exposed the campaign earlier this year, spurring research into the company.
Adnow did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments.
Reuters cannot reach Fazze to comment.
The researchers have recorded a good increase in the influence campaign “for rent” and also in deceptive operations that target real online personality to send messages to the audience ready to use this influencer.
Facebook says it will drop 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts as part of the operation linked by FAZZE.
24,000 accounts are followed by one or more of the Instagram account.
The company said the question about the remaining campaign, as was assigned Fazze to run it.
Facebook also said that on Tuesday’s report in July released a separate network in Myanmar, related to individuals related to Myanmar’s military and targeted the audience in this country.
This operation is said to use duplicates and false accounts, some disguise as protesters and opposition members while others run a pro-military facebook page.
Social networking prohibits Myanmar’s military from Facebook and Instagram in February, after the army seizes power in the coup.