US social media delete the "pro -beauty" account, the background is not easy

[Global Times special reporter Wang Yi Global Times reporter Zhang Wang] The influence of the "pro -American, anti -China and Russia" was removed by the American social giant. According to the United States "New York Times" reported on the 25th, Graphica, the Stanford Internet Observation Station and Social Network Analysis Company, released a report on the 23rd that social media Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter cleared their platforms on their platforms A influence action.

The New York Times reported that researchers have found that in the past 5 years, the influence aims to promote American views, values ​​and goals, while attacking Russia, China and Iran. The accounts used in this operation often pretend to be news media or use false identities, and publish at least 7 languages ​​such as Russian, Arabic and Urdu. The platform used in this operation includes 6 American social media, including Facebook, Twitter, as well as two Russian social media.

Data map

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said that the "source country" of these accounts is the United States, and Twitter said that the "presume source country" of these accounts is the United States and the United Kingdom. "This is the first time we have seen Twitter and META clearing a pro -beauty influence," said the research manager of the Stanford Internet Observation Station. "

The above influence operations were exposed from July and August this year, and Twitter and Meta deleted two sets of accounts. Twitter said that these accounts violated their policy on "platform manipulation and spam", and Meta said that these accounts participated in "coordinated false behaviors". For example, some accounts have released the news that the Russian -Ukraine conflict caused a shortage of food in Central Asian countries and cheered for pro -Ukraine protests in these places. A set of accounts for the Middle East audience praised the US International Development Agency's work in Iraq, and discussed the positive interaction between the U.S. military and Syrian children.

According to the report, the most active operation is aimed at Internet users in Russian in Central Asia, and most of them are concentrated in criticizing Russia's special military operations on Ukraine. In order to promote related narratives, these social media accounts sometimes share news articles from media institutions funded by the US government, or links to websites sponsored by the US military.

However, the report believes that the degree of success of these influence operations is doubtful because it does not attract a large number of audiences. Researchers pointed out that most posts and tweets only received "a small amount" like or forwarding. Only 19%have more than 1,000 followers who have been found to be found.

Shen Yi, director of the International Governance Research Base of Fudan University, told the Global Times on the 26th that although the number of accounts deleted by the American social media platform this time is not large, the influence is not great, but it accidentally exposes the "Voice of America" ​​and other. The US media systematically promotes the tip of false information promotion in the Middle East, Central Asia and other regions. And they do not indicate that they have turned or deviate from the United States, but more because Musk gave up the acquisition of Twitter because Musk was due to the flood of false accounts, which made social platforms feel that some accounts needed to clean up some accounts to avoid affecting commercial interests.

- END -