What did these pages do?

According to the report, the fake accounts were used to conduct an influence campaign aimed at disseminating information favorable to Israel about the war in the region.

Overall, Meta researchers found: There are 510 accounts and 11 pages on Facebook, as well as 32 accounts and one channel on Instagram. They were all related to this campaign, and among them there were even previously hacked accounts.

These pages pretended to be “Jewish students, African-Americans, and ‘compassionate’ citizens” and posted: He praised Israel’s military actions and criticized UNRWA and university protests. They also claimed that “radical Islam poses a threat to Canada’s liberal values” by spreading anti-Islamic comments in Canada.

Meta researchers said the campaign was linked to STOIC, a “political marketing and business intelligence firm” based in Israel, although they did not speculate on the reasons behind the campaign. STOIC was also active on X and YouTube, operating sites “focused on the Israel-Hamas war and Middle East politics.”

According to Meta, The campaign was discovered before it could build a large audienceand many fake accounts have been disabled by automated monitoring systems. These accounts have approximately 500 followers on Facebook and approximately 2,000 followers on Instagram.

The report also notes that the people behind these accounts use generative AI tools to write many of their comments on the pages of politicians, media and public figures.