CONTINUOUS ENFORCEMENT
We monitor for efforts to re-establish a presence on Facebook by networks we previously
removed. Using both automated and manual detection, we continuously remove accounts and
Pages connected to networks we took down in the past.
SUMMARY OF FEBRUARY 2021 FINDINGS
Our teams continue to focus on finding and removing deceptive campaigns around the world —
whether they are foreign or domestic. In February, we removed five networks from Thailand, Iran,
Morocco and Russia. Two Iranian networks primarily targeted people outside of Iran, and three
others — from Thailand, Morocco and Russia — focused on domestic audiences in their
respective countries. We have shared information about our findings with industry partners,
researchers and policymakers.
In addition to these five networks, in February we also detected and removed attempts to
reestablish a presence on Facebook by the military-linked networks we had previously removed
for CIB in Myanmar. These repeat violations over the past few years and continuous attempts to
circumvent our CIB enforcement were among the factors that led to our broader decision to ban
the Myanmar military from Facebook and Instagram, which we shared last week.
Much of the CIB activity we removed worldwide in February was consistent with what we’ve
seen from various threat actors over the past 3 years, including the prevalence of domestic
targeting. The Russia-based network, however, was an interesting example of tactics we often
see from spam and financially motivated actors being deployed to mislead people during civic
protests. In an attempt to drown out relevant information, this network used hundreds of
accounts and mass-posted content with the same hashtags and location tags used by people
posting about the protests against the arrest of Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption activist and
politician. These accounts were automatically detected by our systems and then disabled as
fake.
We know that influence operations will keep evolving in response to our enforcement, and new
deceptive behaviors will emerge. We will continue to refine our enforcement and share our
findings publicly. We are making progress rooting out this abuse, but as we’ve said before – it’s
an ongoing effort. We’re committed to continually improving to stay ahead. That means building
FEBRUARY 2021 COORDINATED INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOR REPORT