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We removed 446 Facebook accounts, four Pages, three Groups and two Instagram
accounts for violating our policy against foreign interference which is coordinated
inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity. This network originated in Iran and
targeted primarily Iraq, and to a lesser extent Israel, the United Kingdom and Afghanistan.
We identified several clusters of activity within this network. The vast majority of it was consistent
with what we previously found and reported from various Iran-linked CIB networks. The people
behind it used fake accounts — many of which had already been detected and disabled by our
automated systems — to create fictitious personas posing as locals in the countries they
targeted, friend people, comment on other people’s posts and manage a handful of Pages. This
activity was primarily carried out by fake accounts, rather than Pages or Groups, and it appears
to have been active on and off starting March 2020 and into 2021. Notably, all accounts in the
network did not post on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February 2021. This
network had nearly no engagement on our platform.
The people behind this activity posted memes, political cartoons and other content in Arabic,
English, Pashto and Hebrew about news and domestic politics in each targeted country,
including Scottish independence from the UK, criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and
US influence in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also briefly mentioned news about COVID-19.
We found this network after reviewing public reporting about a handful of its accounts focused
on Israel. Our internal investigation uncovered the broader network. Although the people behind
this activity attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links
to individuals in Tehran.
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Presence on Facebook and Instagram: 446 Facebook accounts, 4 Pages, 3 Groups and 2
accounts on Instagram.
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Followers: A
bout 400 accounts followed one or more of these Pages, about 20 accounts
joined at least one of these Groups and 0 people followed these Instagram accounts.
FEBRUARY 2021 COORDINATED INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOR REPORT