Facebook Finds Ongoing Evidence of Election Interference

Facebook has uncovered an ongoing effort to influence U.S. political opinions on its social networks, showing how attempts to meddle in civic life ahead of midterm elections are becoming more sophisticated, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook said it notified the U.S. government and deleted dozens of accounts and pages from people using false identities, who were coordinating events and stirring up political unrest. The campaign is similar to the one Russia-linked groups ran around the 2016 presidential elections, though the company doesn’t know who’s behind it this time. Facebook said that the responsible parties were determined to not get caught.

The new disclosure underscores the increasing difficulty of staying ahead of the latest strategies by political operatives trying to take advantage of Facebook’s algorithm, which helps popular and incendiary ideas to go viral. The accounts Facebook discussed already coordinated about 30 real-world events over the past year. At stake in this year’s midterms are several contentious races that could flip the U.S. Congress to Democratic control.

Facebook said that starting last week, it identified eight pages and 17 profiles on its main social network, and seven accounts on Instagram that violated its rules. It shared the findings with U.S. law enforcement, Congress and other technology companies. The company said it was letting the public know ahead of a real protest the fake accounts had helped coordinate in the nation’s capital for next week.