The FBI informed Facebook that a Russian troll farm had been creating new accounts in an effort to recreate its success at influencing the social media platform, allowing Facebook to stop its progress early on, CNN reports.
The reconstituted troll farm, made up of the same St. Petersburg-based entities known previously at the “Internet Research Agency,” created fake profiles using life-like computer-generated profile photos, to gin up interest in a fake news site.
“This looks like an early-stage attempt to target left-wing audiences on a range of issues,” Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at Graphika, a social media analytics company commissioned by Facebook to study the influence operation, told CNN Business Tuesday.
Thanks to the early intervention by the FBI and Facebook, the effort did not gain momentum. Facebook was able to identify the phony accounts and delete them before they gained many followers or posted linked to the disinformation site.
This operation duplicated efforts made by Russia in the 2016 and 2018 US elections, where Russian government-back entities flooded social media with accounts and fake stories to sow distrust in media and the election system.