9/24/21, 7:33 PM Facebook shut down commercial disinformation network based in Myanmar and Vietnam | by @DFRLab | DFRLab | Medium plateaued soon after. This pattern indicated that the pages’ like counts may have been artificially boosted. In the case of Myanmar Internet & Telecom News, it saw exponential growth in page likes before it ever posted any content. The increase in page likes started on December 23, 2018, a few days before the increase in page interactions seen on December 28, 2018 — this preemptive engagement is another indicator of inauthentic behavior. An analysis of Page Interactions for the period indicatedin dark blue. Note the abrupt start and end of interactions with the page on December 26 and 28, 2018. (Source: @jean_leroux/DFRLab via CrowdTangle) Page administration and history The Page Transparency section for each of the assets provided an indication of possible coordinated activity. First, four of the six pages — in two pairs — had creation dates clustered around two separate days, with two created on December 14, 2018, and another two on March 7, 2019. https://medium.com/dfrlab/facebook-shut-down-commercial-disinformation-network-based-in-myanmar-and-vietnam-d8c07c518c04 7/15