Facebook The international campaign to spread false information about coronavirus vaccination has stopped. As the company said on Tuesday, a Russian advertising company tried to smear fake news on various online platforms. After German and French influencers conducted research and sounded the alarm, the event attracted attention.
The Russian company Fazze was behind the event. Facebook stated that it ran a “disinformation cleaning system.” The goal is to allow trusted people to share false information with a large number of followers online.
Notorious vaccine
The campaign mainly targets India and Latin America, but it also targets the United States. This is about making the coronavirus vaccine notorious, and whether to approve the vaccine is being debated.
Ben Nimmo, who is responsible for tracking Facebook’s false information, said that he hopes these influencers will not do their “homework.” The two influencers contacted conducted an investigation. “This is really a warning,” Nimmo told influencers: “If anyone wants to sell you a story, please be careful. Do your own research.”
Account locked
The company stated that 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts related to the campaign were removed from Instagram in July. In addition, Fazze has been banned from entering the platform.
Therefore, the misinformation campaign is divided into several stages: at the end of last year, it mainly targeted vaccines from China. AstraZenecaThe fake account shared a banner claiming that the vaccine would turn people into chimpanzees. A few months later, the vaccines of BioNTech and Pfizer were also attacked. It also tried to distribute files allegedly leaked in the hacking attack on AstraZeneca.
Self-created article as a source
Organizers not only used Facebook’s platform, but also published misleading articles and online petitions on Reddit, Medium and Change.org. Fazze then emailed references to these articles to influential people, some of whom sounded alarm bells and let reporters learn about the campaign.
According to media reports, Fazze is a subsidiary of AdNow, a registered advertising company in the United Kingdom. Nathaniel Gleicher, who is in charge of security strategy, said that Facebook does not know who hired the company to conduct false information campaigns. Facebook shared its findings with the responsible authorities and other platforms.
According to the company, the campaign has generally had little effect. Photos on Instagram received little support, and petitions sent in English and Hindi received less than 1,000 signatures.
According to Facebook, more and more campaigns use influencers to spread false information. The company is currently arguing with the US government on how to contain fake news about the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the government itself relies on influential people to persuade people to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
