Facebook bans Russian disinformation network that claimed coronavirus vaccines turn people into chimpanzees

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Thu, 2021-08-12 19:16 — mike kraft

Facebook bans Russian disinformation network that claimed coronavirus vaccines turn people into chimpanzees The company called the anti-vaccine campaign a “disinformation laundromat,” whose efforts spanned Reddit, Medium and Change.org, as well as Facebook and its sister platform Instagram Rachel Pannett Washington Post

Facebook has removed hundreds of accounts it said were part of a disinformation campaign largely run out of Russia that also used social media influencers to peddle fake claims about coronavirus vaccines, including that some shots could turn people into chimpanzees.

Investigators said they traced the origins of the campaign to Fazze, a subsidiary of a U.K.-registered marketing firm whose operations were primarily conducted from Russia. The operation “targeted audiences primarily in India, Latin America and, to a much lesser extent, the United States,” according to a report published Tuesday by the social media company.

Facebook called the anti-vaccine campaign a “disinformation laundromat,” whose efforts spanned Reddit, Medium and Change.org, as well as Facebook and its sister platform Instagram, where fake accounts were said to have amplified disinformation. Influencers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok were also asked to post misleading content and use certain hashtags, the company said.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company banned Fazze because these actions violated Facebook’s policy against foreign interference through “coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity,” it said.

Fazze made headlines earlier this year when influencers including French YouTuber Léo Grasset — also known as DirtyBiology — said they had received a proposal from the agency to baselessly claim online that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is dangerous and more lethal than the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot. That effort reportedly triggered an investigation by French authorities into the potential involvement of the Russian state. ...

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