Payam Javan: Tech giant Meta has conducted a massive purge of counterfeit accounts across its platforms, asserting that these accounts were tied to China’s law enforcement agencies and collectively constituted the largest online influence campaign globally.

In a recent publication on August 29, Meta revealed that the deleted accounts were connected to an operation referred to as “Spamouflage” by cybersecurity experts. The cleanup effort involved the removal of more than 7,700 Facebook accounts, 900 pages, 15 groups, as well as several Instagram accounts. These accounts were found to be partaking in the dissemination of pro-Chinese communist content and anti-U.S. propaganda, among other activities.

Nevertheless, Meta was not the sole host of this Chinese disinformation campaign. The report disclosed that this “covert influence operation” extended to over 50 platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Quora, and Vimeo.

The orchestrators behind this operation seemed to be individuals linked to China’s law enforcement, employing a strategy that masked their geographic origin. Despite attempts to portray their actions as originating from the United States, these operators were geographically distributed across various regions in China.

Meta’s report concluded that “geographically dispersed operators across China” were managing the network. While the culprits endeavored to hide their identities and collaboration, the investigation managed to uncover connections to individuals associated with Chinese law enforcement.