Many in the media, even more in the streets, are calling out Republicans and “those on the right” for spreading “disinformation” on Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else on the Internet. People have continuously complained that Russia actors are helping conservatives by spreading false information, leading to big tech censoring the content and accounts from prominent Republicans and those involved with conservative media. However, it seems the tables have been turned as Facebook as found fake left-wing accounts that have led to protests.
On Tuesday, Facebook announced that they had removed at least 32 “inauthentic” profiles and pages from both Facebook and Instagram. According to a report from The Daily Caller, the company believed the now-deleted accounts were part of a larger coordinated disinformation campaign.
“We’re still in the very early stages of our investigation and don’t have all the facts — including who may be behind this,” a statement from the tech company read. “But we are sharing what we know today given the connection between these bad actors and protests that are planned in Washington next week.”
Facebook explained that many of the accounts and pages exuded “progressive or left-wing messages.” Reportedly, one page entitled “Resisters” even created an event scheduled between August 10 and 12 called “No Unite the Right 2 — DC,” which led to 2,600 Facebook users expressing interest and over 600 saying they were attending.
“Inauthentic admins of the ‘Resisters’ Page connected with admins from five legitimate Pages to co-host the event. These legitimate Pages unwittingly helped build interest in ‘No Unite Right 2 — DC’ and posted information about transportation, materials, and locations so people could get to the protests,” a statement from Facebook said.
Law enforcement officials and members of Congress are now investigating the situation. Nonetheless, Facebook says they are not confident that they would be able to figure out the person of origin behind the pages or the campaigns.
Coordinated activity on the social media platform – involving at least 290,000 accounts who “liked” the pages or said they were attending events – was also seen with fake pages named: “Aztlan Warriors,” a pro-Latin American page, “Black Elevation,” a Black pride page, and “Mindful Being,” according to the report. Furthermore, the campaign “#AbolishIce,” which seeks to usher in the end of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was among the list of inauthentic accounts.
Tech Crunch reports that Facebook said, “They [the fake accounts and pages] ran about 150 ads for approximately $11,000 on Facebook and Instagram, paid for in US and Canadian dollars between April 2017 and June of this year. The Pages also made around 30 Facebook events.”
This revelation throws a definite wrench in the machine behind the espousal of the narrative that outside governments or groups favor one political party over the others. The left-leaning nature of all this is sure to have Democrats explaining the real meaning of “collusion.”