9/24/21, 7:33 PM Facebook shut down commercial disinformation network based in Myanmar and Vietnam | by @DFRLab | DFRLab | Medium To determine the sequence and timing of these posts, the DFRLab looked at the source code of the site. Facebook’s timestamps are not granular enough to determine the exact second of the post, but the UNIX timestamp found in the source code of each post is. A screengrab of the source code of the Facebook page, revealing the UNIX timestamp (data-utime). (Source: @jean_leroux/DFRLab via Facebook) The UNIX timestamp is a measure of the number of seconds that have passed since 00:00 on January 1, 1970, and is useful to describe a specific, timezone-agnostic moment. The UNIX value can be converted into human-readable date and time values using a spreadsheet formula or various converters found online. After converting the UNIX timestamp back into a human readable date, the posts could be catalogued down to the second. https://medium.com/dfrlab/facebook-shut-down-commercial-disinformation-network-based-in-myanmar-and-vietnam-d8c07c518c04 11/15