Social media conglomerate Meta has reported taking down a Russian ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ network that shared fake news and AI-generated content, some of which supported Georgia’s ruling party and criticised opponents of the foreign agent law.
In their latest Adversarial Threat Report released this week, Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, reported that they had taken down a Russian network operating 76 accounts and 30 pages on Facebook and 11 accounts on Instagram.
[Read more: Georgian government launches onerous and invasive registration for ‘foreign agent’ NGOs and media]
According to the company, the network also operated fictitious news websites in order to look more credible to consumers and moderators of other platforms, including YouTube, Telegram, and TikTok, which they continue to be present on.
‘Although the people behind the CIB [coordinated inauthentic behaviour] network attempted to conceal their identity and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with a Moscow-registered marketing firm called IMA Digital’, the report stated.
Meta also said that the network had spent around $77,000 on ads.
OC Media has reached out to Meta and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a Tbilisi-based group partnered with Meta, for additional details.
The report is the latest in a series of crackdowns against Georgian Dream-linked networks on Meta’s platforms dating back to 2019, and supports the claims of government critics who maintain that the ruling party has been steering the country towards closer ties with Russia.
‘Not only is [Georgian] Dream directly controlled [by Russia], but even their supporting social media accounts are managed from Russia. This is why we must unite to remove Dream from power; their leadership poses a threat to our country’s Western integration’, Irakli Pavlenishvili, a member of United National Movement, the leading party of the opposition Unity coalition, stated on Friday.
Irakli Kupradze, one of the leaders of the Strong Georgia opposition alliance, echoed the sentiment, stating the same day that the revelation served as ‘yet another confirmation that [Georgian] Dream’s and the Russian, Putin’s propaganda, is one and the same’.
In October of last year, Myth Detector, a Georgian fact-checking platform, raised concerns about entertainment and anonymous pages on Facebook promoting anti-EU narratives they said resembled the tactics of Russia-linked anti-Western disinformation campaigns observed elsewhere. Several months earlier, Meta reported suspending dozens of Facebook accounts directly linked to the Georgian government’s Department of Strategic Communications, the sub-agency responsible for combating disinformation.
In January 2023, ISFED reported on a pro-Russian network operating across the three South Caucasus countries. This included several Facebook pages targeting Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian audiences. ISFED also tracked down the websites of bogus organisations such as the ‘South Caucasus Institute’.
[Read more: Datablog | Attitudes towards disinformation on social media in Armenia and Georgia]
In the latest report released on Thursday, Meta highlighted that the network was also involved in spreading pro-Russian commentary critical of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan among Armenians, as well as disseminating criticism of the West targeted at an Azerbaijani audience.
The report also cautioned that they expect Russia-linked operators to attempt to interfere in the upcoming US elections by amplifying pro-Russia views on the war in Ukraine and supporting ‘candidates who oppose aid to Ukraine and criticise those who advocate for aiding its defenses’ — an apparent nod towards presidential candidate Donald Trump.
