Facebook, Twitter suspend Russia-linked operation targeting African Americans on social media

The malicious campaign relied on a mix of fake accounts and real people, who lived in Ghana and Nigeria, some of whom appear to have been duped into thinking they were aiding a non-governmental organization. Instead, they helped amplify a network of inauthentic accounts, pages and groups on Facebook and Twitter that shared polarizing content around social issues including race and civil rights, the tech giants said.

None of the so-called coordinated, inauthentic activity focused on elections or sought to "promote or denigrate political candidates," said Nathaniel Gleicher, the head of security policy at Facebook. But Facebook and Twitter linked the operation to some of the same Russian actors that employed similar tactics four years ago to spread falsehoods during the 2016 presidential race.

Thursday's actions are likely to rattle Washington at a moment when U.S. intelligence leaders once again are sounding the alarms about suspected Russian interference. This week, a senior Trump administration official told Congress that Russia's online efforts did not explicitly seek to benefit a particular candidate. In earlier briefings, intelligence leaders told lawmakers that Russia's online efforts had "developed a preference" for Trump.

Four years ago, so-called Russian trolls seeded posts, photos and videos on major social-networking sites in support of Trump, and in opposition of then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Many of those Facebook posts, tweets and YouTube videos also sought to stoke social and political discord, including by trying to discourage black and Latino users from voting in the first place.

In response, tech giants including Facebook and Twitter raced to bolster their digital defenses, hiring more workers to review content and investing more heavily in artificial intelligence that could spot coordinated, fake accounts. But Russia's tactics also have evolved, reflecting a better understanding of American politics and a heightened ability to take advantage of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to spread falsehoods at scale.

In October, Facebook said it had removed a network of Russian-backed accounts that had posed as locals to weigh in on political issues in swing states, at times praising Trump and attacking former vice president Joe Biden. The disinformation operation - discovered in its early stages - also sought to sow divisions among a then-packed Democratic primary field.

On Thursday, Facebook and Twitter leaders said they could not speculate on whether the Russia-linked network they removed might have eventually pivoted into politics. "We know we caught this early enough on that these accounts were broadly unsuccessful in obtaining a large scale audience," said Yoel Roth, the head of site integrity at Twitter.

The campaign disabled Thursday spanned 49 accounts and 69 pages on Facebook, with another 85 accounts on Instagram. More than 13,000 users followed one or more of the pages, and 265,000 followed one or more of the since-suspended accounts on Instagram. On Twitter, meanwhile, the company said it discovered 71 accounts associated with the operation.

In a unusual turn, though, malicious, Russia-linked actors essentially helped set up a non-governmental organization, called EBLA, based in Ghana. Gleicher said Russia's approach aimed to make it "harder for us to find them."

Much of its efforts appear to have been directed at U.S. social media users, the tech giants said. At one point, the group tried to hire an staff person in Charleston, South Carolina, said Darren Linvill, a communications professor at Clemson University, who initially found some of the suspect Twitter accounts.

An archived version of one of the closed Facebook pages, EBLA, shows that it was created Oct. 1, 2019, and posted on a range of issues apparently targeting African Americans, including on the subjects of racial violence. The contact information showed a phone number in Ghana. The page is no longer available online.

A post from Feb. 5 said, "There is always a justification for the violence a white man committed on a black man. This is because our history was thwarted the very first day we refused to put down the history by ourselves. You cannot tell someone to write your history when that person is guilty of those crimes and yet expect them to write them to suite you. #blackcommunity #martinlutherking #socialissues #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackLove."

Other posts on the page quoted Martin Luther King and complained about what it called "hair discrimination."

Several researchers studied the disinformation campaign along with the tech companies. They noted the sophistication of the operations, which resembled previous efforts in themes but relied on new techniques for delivering them.

"Information operations' increasingly creative use of proxies, including of real groups and organizations wittingly or unwittingly participating in these campaigns, is a clear and problematic trend we've observed over the last few months," added Camille Francois, chief innovation officer for Graphika, a network analysis firm that studies disinformation.

The firm issued its own report Thursday on the Ghana-based campaign, called "IRA in Ghana: Double Deceit," that details the similarities and differences with efforts by Russia's Internet Research Agency during and after the 2016 presidential election.

The EBLA website, which remained online Thursday afternoon, described itself as a Ghana-based non-governmental organization. "EBLA is a network of strong advocates of human rights. We envisage a world where individuals live freely in peace and harmony through the respect of rights," the site says.

Linvill, the Clemson professor, found suspicious accounts in July and flagged them for Twitter. After those were closed, he said, Linvill found a second mysterious set in September.

Both sets of accounts acted in ways similar to ones used by Russia's Internet Research Agency before and after the 2016 presidential election to target African Americans. They pushed themes of black pride, racial oppression and police violence, interacting heavily with American Twitter users and also accounts that Linvill had determined were Russian. The oddest thing, however, was that the location of the Twitter accounts was listed as Ghana.

Both Linvill's work and a report by Graphika highlighted the apparent tactical shift. The Ghanian accounts were tied to real people and a real organization, rather than merely being fake accounts.

"Most of these accounts were real people, which is the best way to hide your disinformation. You just connect it to an actual human," Linvill said. "You have to go three steps to figure out these real people were being paid by Russia."

He also said Ghanian police shut down EBLA, whose full name is Eliminating Barriers for Liberation of Africa, recently.

The Ghanian group, EBLA, which did not respond to an email or calls seeking comment Thursday, posted an ad on LinkedIn seeking a "Chapter Coordinator" in Charleston, South Carolina. "We call on interested African Americans and other POC [people of color] to join our cause," which the notice said including "brutality." It listed a contact number in Ghana.