According to the researchers, the covert campaigns were aimed at “promoting pro-Western narratives” in countries such as Russia, China, Afghanistan and Iran. Interestingly, Twitter and Facebook have removed a number of accounts from their platforms for “manipulating” and violating codes of conduct, without knowing that these pages belong to the US government and their plans.

what is known

• Researchers have found that over the years, some pages have run campaigns that criticize or support foreign governments and offer alternative views on culture and politics.
• This is sometimes done by sharing links to news sites sponsored by the US government and military, the report said.
• The data analyzed came from 146 Twitter accounts (299,566 tweets), 39 Facebook profiles and 26 Instagram accounts, as well as 16 pages and two Facebook groups.
• Among the information circulated on social networks were: memes, petitions, hashtag campaigns and fake news.
• Some accounts looked like real people and used AI-generated profile pictures.
• Meta and Twitter did not name any particular organization or person behind the campaignsbut his analysis led them to believe they came from the US and UK, he said.

The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a few likes or retweets, and only 19 percent of the accounts we identified had more than 1,000 followers.
– tell the researchers.

The two accounts with the most followers openly said they were affiliated with the US military.

The report did not find any sophisticated hacking techniques that take advantage of weak security – just the use of standard social media functions.