Facebook derails effort to mislead protesters in Russia

Accounts in the network used celebrity photos or profile photos evidently generated automatically by software, and posts included claims protests were being criticised by a TikTok star and that lots of children were attending rallies, the report detailed. — AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook on March 3 said it derailed a deceptive campaign to use hundreds of bogus Instagram accounts to mislead people in Russia protesting the arrest of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

The network off Instagram accounts used hashtag and location “poisoning” typically associated with spam or financial scams to drown out posts by protesters, according to Facebook global threat disruption lead David Agranovich.