The technology behemoth Meta has said that it has purged thousands of Facebook accounts that were part of a widespread online Chinese spam operation trying to covertly boost China and criticize the West.
The campaign, which became known as “Spamouflage,” was active across more than 50 platforms and forums including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter, according to a Meta threat report.
Meta Global Threat Intelligence Lead Ben Nimmo said that this disinformation campaign, which they cracked down on, is the largest, though unsuccessful, and most prolific covert influence operation that we know of in the world today.
Meta began investigating in 2019 and its research aligned with several research groups, including the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Aspi), who later coined the term Spamouflage.
The campaign had shifted away from large platforms such as Facebook and Twitter on to the smaller sites after it was initially identified and blocked by the platforms in 2019.
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