DISARMframeworks/generated_pages/incidents/I00082.md

Incident I00082: Meta’s November 2021 Adversarial Threat Report

• Summary: “Over the past four years, [Meta has] shared our findings about coordinated inauthentic behavior we detect and remove from our platforms. As part of our regular CIB reports, we’re sharing information about all networks we take down over the course of a month to make it easier for people to see the progress we’re making in one place.”

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Reference	Pub Date	Authors	Org	Archive
https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Metas-Adversarial-Threat-Report.pdf	2021/12/01	Nathaniel Gleicher, Ben Nimmo, David Agranovich, Mike Dvilyanski	Meta	https://web.archive.org/web/20240521154735/https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Metas-Adversarial-Threat-Report.pdf

Technique	Description given for this incident
T0097.102 Journalist Persona	IT00000287 “[Meta] removed 41 Facebook accounts, five Groups, and four Instagram accounts for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This activity originated in Belarus and primarily targeted audiences in the Middle East and Europe. “The core of this activity began in October 2021, with some accounts created as recently as mid-November. The people behind it used newly-created fake accounts — many of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems soon after creation — to pose as journalists and activists from the European Union, particularly Poland and Lithuania. Some of the accounts used profile photos likely generated using artificial intelligence techniques like generative adversarial networks (GAN). These fictitious personas posted criticism of Poland in English, Polish, and Kurdish, including pictures and videos about Polish border guards allegedly violating migrants’ rights, and compared Poland’s treatment of migrants against other countries’. They also posted to Groups focused on the welfare of migrants in Europe. A few accounts posted in Russian about relations between Belarus and the Baltic States.” This example shows how accounts identified as participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour were presenting themselves as journalists and activists while spreading operation narratives (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona). Additionally, analysts at Meta identified accounts which were participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that had likely used AI-Generated images as their profile pictures (T0145.002: AI-Generated Account Imagery).
T0097.103 Activist Persona	IT00000288 “[Meta] removed 41 Facebook accounts, five Groups, and four Instagram accounts for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This activity originated in Belarus and primarily targeted audiences in the Middle East and Europe. “The core of this activity began in October 2021, with some accounts created as recently as mid-November. The people behind it used newly-created fake accounts — many of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems soon after creation — to pose as journalists and activists from the European Union, particularly Poland and Lithuania. Some of the accounts used profile photos likely generated using artificial intelligence techniques like generative adversarial networks (GAN). These fictitious personas posted criticism of Poland in English, Polish, and Kurdish, including pictures and videos about Polish border guards allegedly violating migrants’ rights, and compared Poland’s treatment of migrants against other countries’. They also posted to Groups focused on the welfare of migrants in Europe. A few accounts posted in Russian about relations between Belarus and the Baltic States.” This example shows how accounts identified as participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour were presenting themselves as journalists and activists while spreading operation narratives (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona). Additionally, analysts at Meta identified accounts which were participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that had likely used AI-Generated images as their profile pictures (T0145.002: AI-Generated Account Imagery).
T0097.103 Activist Persona	IT00000290 “[Meta] removed a network of accounts in Vietnam for violating our Inauthentic Behavior policy against mass reporting. They coordinated the targeting of activists and other people who publicly criticized the Vietnamese government and used false reports of various violations in an attempt to have these users removed from our platform. The people behind this activity relied primarily on authentic and duplicate accounts to submit hundreds — in some cases, thousands — of complaints against their targets through our abuse reporting flows. “Many operators also maintained fake accounts — some of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems — to pose as their targets so they could then report the legitimate accounts as fake. They would frequently change the gender and name of their fake accounts to resemble the target individual. Among the most common claims in this misleading reporting activity were complaints of impersonation, and to a much lesser extent inauthenticity. The network also advertised abusive services in their bios and constantly evolved their tactics in an attempt to evade detection.“ In this example actors repurposed their accounts to impersonate targeted activists (T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona) in order to falsely report the activists’ legitimate accounts as impersonations (T0124.001: Report Non-Violative Opposing Content)
T0124.001 Report Non-Violative Opposing Content	IT00000291 “[Meta] removed a network of accounts in Vietnam for violating our Inauthentic Behavior policy against mass reporting. They coordinated the targeting of activists and other people who publicly criticized the Vietnamese government and used false reports of various violations in an attempt to have these users removed from our platform. The people behind this activity relied primarily on authentic and duplicate accounts to submit hundreds — in some cases, thousands — of complaints against their targets through our abuse reporting flows. “Many operators also maintained fake accounts — some of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems — to pose as their targets so they could then report the legitimate accounts as fake. They would frequently change the gender and name of their fake accounts to resemble the target individual. Among the most common claims in this misleading reporting activity were complaints of impersonation, and to a much lesser extent inauthenticity. The network also advertised abusive services in their bios and constantly evolved their tactics in an attempt to evade detection.“ In this example actors repurposed their accounts to impersonate targeted activists (T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona) in order to falsely report the activists’ legitimate accounts as impersonations (T0124.001: Report Non-Violative Opposing Content)
T0143.003 Impersonated Persona	IT00000292 “[Meta] removed a network of accounts in Vietnam for violating our Inauthentic Behavior policy against mass reporting. They coordinated the targeting of activists and other people who publicly criticized the Vietnamese government and used false reports of various violations in an attempt to have these users removed from our platform. The people behind this activity relied primarily on authentic and duplicate accounts to submit hundreds — in some cases, thousands — of complaints against their targets through our abuse reporting flows. “Many operators also maintained fake accounts — some of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems — to pose as their targets so they could then report the legitimate accounts as fake. They would frequently change the gender and name of their fake accounts to resemble the target individual. Among the most common claims in this misleading reporting activity were complaints of impersonation, and to a much lesser extent inauthenticity. The network also advertised abusive services in their bios and constantly evolved their tactics in an attempt to evade detection.“ In this example actors repurposed their accounts to impersonate targeted activists (T0097.103: Activist Persona, T0143.003: Impersonated Persona) in order to falsely report the activists’ legitimate accounts as impersonations (T0124.001: Report Non-Violative Opposing Content)
T0145.002 AI-Generated Account Imagery	IT00000289 “[Meta] removed 41 Facebook accounts, five Groups, and four Instagram accounts for violating our policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior. This activity originated in Belarus and primarily targeted audiences in the Middle East and Europe. “The core of this activity began in October 2021, with some accounts created as recently as mid-November. The people behind it used newly-created fake accounts — many of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems soon after creation — to pose as journalists and activists from the European Union, particularly Poland and Lithuania. Some of the accounts used profile photos likely generated using artificial intelligence techniques like generative adversarial networks (GAN). These fictitious personas posted criticism of Poland in English, Polish, and Kurdish, including pictures and videos about Polish border guards allegedly violating migrants’ rights, and compared Poland’s treatment of migrants against other countries’. They also posted to Groups focused on the welfare of migrants in Europe. A few accounts posted in Russian about relations between Belarus and the Baltic States.” This example shows how accounts identified as participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour were presenting themselves as journalists and activists while spreading operation narratives (T0097.102: Journalist Persona, T0097.103: Activist Persona). Additionally, analysts at Meta identified accounts which were participating in coordinated inauthentic behaviour that had likely used AI-Generated images as their profile pictures (T0145.002: AI-Generated Account Imagery).

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