Starting in April 2018, a group of anonymous people created fake American social media accounts to pose as journalists, plant letters to newspapers and impersonate Republican candidates for Congress — all in an apparent effort to promote Iranian interests. Was this the work of an Iranian intelligence service? A third country? A band of pranksters? It’s not completely clear who was behind the campaign, according to reports released Tuesday by Facebook and a leading cybersecurity company, FireEye. But what it shows, the companies say, is that the tech-fueled media environment which makes the United States a global beacon for free expression has also opened American consumers to exploitation and manipulation. And there is yet no good answer for what to do about it.
“This demonstrates that actors who engage in this type of influence activity leverage all manner of different tactics and techniques that stretch across a wide variety of media and platforms,” Lee Foster, who leads FireEye’s intelligence team, said. “This is a societywide issue that we really have to come to terms with and figure out a way to effectively tackle.” “We risk the U.S. information space effectively becoming a free-for-all for foreign interference,” he added. The FBI declined to comment, pointing NBC News to a statement by Director Christopher Wray, who told Congress on May 7, “On the counterintelligence side, we’re facing a uniquely challenging time in terms of foreign investment, foreign influence; China, Russia, North Korea, Iran. I could go on and on there.”
Based on a tip from FireEye, Facebook said Tuesday it removed 51 Facebook accounts, 36 pages, seven groups and three Instagram accounts involved in what it called “coordinated inauthentic behaviorthat originated in Iran.”