Meta says it removed six influence campaigns, including those from Israel and China

Meta says it cracked down on propaganda campaigns on its platforms, including one that used AI to influence political speech and create the illusion of broader support for certain views, according to its report. quarterly threat report published today. Some campaigns promoted political narratives about current events, including campaigns from Israel and Iran that published in support of the Israeli government.

The networks used Facebook and Instagram accounts to try to influence political agendas around the world. The campaigns — some of which also originated in Bangladesh, China and Croatia — used fake accounts to post messages supporting political movements, promote fake news outlets or comment on posts from legitimate news organizations.

One network that originated in China, for example, consisted of several dozen Instagram and Facebook accounts, pages and groups and was used to reach global Sikh communities, says Meta. Another campaign attributed to Israel used more than 500 Facebook and Instagram accounts to pose as local Jewish students, African-Americans and “concerned” citizens praising Israeli military actions and discussing anti-Semitism on campus, among other types of content.

Some of the content shared by these two networks was likely created using generative AI tools, writes Meta. The China-based campaign’s accounts shared AI-generated images, and the Israeli campaign posted AI-generated comments, Meta found. The report states that, for now, AI-powered influence campaigns are not sophisticated enough to evade existing detection systems.