Meta Spots ‘Largest Influence Network to Date’ of 7,700 Facebook Accounts

Meta has taken down a large network of Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages that were engaged in a Chinese influence campaign. The 7,700 accounts are linked to the Chinese regime and are said to have been the largest influence network to date.

Meta registers over the network its quarterly report about its security policy. In recent months, Meta has deleted 7,704 accounts, 954 pages and 15 groups on Facebook, as well as another 15 accounts on Instagram. According to Meta, they were all part of the same network and, according to Meta, violated the general terms and conditions of the platform. The network had about 560,000 followers and spent at least $3,500 in yuan and dollars to get ads on the platforms. According to Meta, this is the largest influence network that it has managed to spot on its own platforms to date.

Meta links the network, which it calls Spamouflage, to the Chinese government. The company says the accounts on the network primarily targeted Taiwan, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and international Chinese-speaking groups. In addition to Facebook and Instagram, Meta says the network was also active on other social media, including X, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit and Pinterest.

According to Meta, the accounts received little engagement. The accounts used spam and click farms to gain followers and likes. “Despite the large number of accounts and platforms it used, Spamouflage had a hard time getting out of its own echo chamber,” Meta writes. The people behind the networking tried to do that; they posted mainly positive reports about Xinjiang, the province where the Chinese government is committing a genocide against the Uyghur Muslim minority. The network also criticized the US and Western foreign policy. They often linked to self-written messages on platforms such as Medium and Quora.