left-leaning individuals to comment on content as well. This activity was centered
primarily around commenting on news articles posted by news organizations and
public figures, rather than posting their own content. These comments included
topics like trophy or sport hunting in the US and Kenya, the midterm elections in
2018, the 2020 presidential election, COVID-19, criticism of the Democratic party
and presidential candidate Joe Biden, and praise of President Trump and the
Republican party. Most recently, the people behind this activity commented most
frequently on Pages of the Washington Post, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and The New
York Times. This network showed some links to on-platform activity by Turning Point
USA.
This network appears to have started its operations in 2018 and continued through
2020. Its election-focused behavior began in 2018 in the run-up to the midterms, it
then went largely dormant until June 2020. The most recent activity included
creating what we call “thinly veiled personas” whose names were slight variations of
the names of the people behind them and whose sole activity on our platform was
associated with this deceptive campaign. We assess this shift in tactics is likely due
to the majority of this network’s fake accounts getting caught by our automated
detection systems.
We began our investigation after public reporting about some elements of this
activity by the Washington Post. Although the people behind this network
attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation linked this
activity to Rally Forge, a US marketing firm, working on behalf of Turning Point USA
and Inclusive Conservation Group. Rally Forge is now banned from Facebook. We are
continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we
determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior.
• Presence on Facebook and Instagram: 202 Facebook accounts, 54 Pages and 76
Instagram accounts. (Updated on November 6, 2020 at 9:00AM PT to reflect the latest
numbers.)
• Followers: About 372,500 accounts followed one or more of these Pages and around
22,000 people followed one or more of these Instagram accounts. (Updated on
November 6, 2020 at 9:00AM PT to reflect the latest numbers.)
• Advertising: Around $1.15 million in spending for ads on Facebook and Instagram paid for
in US dollars. This includes the entirety of advertising activity by both inauthentic and
authentic accounts removed as part of this network. (Updated on November 6, 2020 at
9:00AM PT to reflect the latest numbers.)
Below is a sample of the content posted by some of these Pages and accounts: