The company says it scuttled the operations before they reached a wide audience.
Facebook parent Meta said Sunday it removed two disinformation campaigns from its platforms that targeted Ukraine.Security officials have warned that efforts to manipulate online conversation, from Russian state actors or pro-Russian groups, could be used to help justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The campaign operated from Russia and Ukraine and targeted people across multiple social platforms, as well as through its own websites, said David Agranovich, director of threat disruption at Meta. Agranovich said Meta found links between this operation and another operation it removed in 2020, which at the time Meta connected to individuals in Russia, the Donbas region in Ukraine and Crimea in particular — as well as to two news firms in Crimea called NewsFront and SouthFront, which are both now sanctioned by the U.S. government.in the past several days, was identified by Meta as the work of a coordinated hacking group tracked by the security community.
They found efforts to target people on Facebook and post YouTube videos portraying Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia.