What an extraordinary story. Bad luck, Facebook. The company-wide effort to brush the grossly distorted elections of 2016 under the carpet just hit a setback. 3.5 years on, a massive $308k influence operation affiliated with *Roger Stone* is unmasked... https://t.co/4MP4cFf0I7

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) July 8, 2020

Facebook specifically cites Roger Stone's alleged network of troll accounts in 2016--revealed in Mueller search warrants this spring--as a reason it looked into his online presence

Previously: https://t.co/rd1uW7dz9G https://t.co/DM1mwI6SGG

— Katelyn Polantz (@kpolantz) July 8, 2020

Today we’re announcing four CIB takedowns. These operations all have links to commercial orgs and individuals associated with political campaigns and political offices that are using CIB to influence public debate in their own countries. https://t.co/KLYfb03TeO

— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) July 8, 2020

And from @DFRLab on the Bolsanaro-related cluster. My initial read is that this is the most important of the four takedowns announced today, at least in local political impact. https://t.co/MIk4tKJc1q

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 8, 2020

BREAKING: @Facebook just took down four networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior. Attributions include:

- "some of the employees of the offices of (...) Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro and Jair Bolsonaro";

- "Roger Stone and his associates."https://t.co/dYwqHkKVn3

— Ben Nimmo (@benimmo) July 8, 2020

You know who was part of the Brooks Brothers riot and associated disinfo back in the day -- along with Roger Stone? Joel Kaplan. Yeah, that one, the @Facebook VP of global public policy or whatever his title is now. Matt Schlapp was also one of their little groupies. https://t.co/du9sbBsIT9

— Brooke Binkowski (@brooklynmarie) July 8, 2020

Facebook identifies and removes four networks engaged in foreign interference & coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

One group is linked to Canadian firm Estraterra. The group paid approx $1.38 million (USD) in purchasing ads on Facebook. https://t.co/WujPsNdibx

— Christopher Parsons (@caparsons) July 8, 2020

Another one of Trump's criminal friends doing shady stuff: Facebook closes network of accounts and pages affiliated with Roger Stone for manipulation https://t.co/eeQVBPlHwd

— Wajahat "Wears a Mask Because of a Pandemic" Ali (@WajahatAli) July 8, 2020

Facebook also removed 35 Facebook accounts, 14 Pages, 1 Group and 38 Instagram accounts linked to coordinated inauthentic behavior in #Brazil that focused on domestic audiences. #FacebookTakedownhttps://t.co/LEeqqziPad

— DFRLab (@DFRLab) July 8, 2020

We've been highlighting for years that politicians around the ? also use coordinated networks of fake accounts to influence domestic & local issues. Today's Facebook takedowns reckons with 4 of these cases.

? Our writeup on the Roger Stone takedown: https://t.co/s1czX4glzv https://t.co/bAaRKPIulA

— Camille François (@camillefrancois) July 8, 2020

Great job, @Facebook (if you had done it in 2016)! https://t.co/julLe0bm8G

— Adam Sank ?️‍? (@AdamSank) July 8, 2020

In Ukraine, Facebook removed a bunch of pages run by ad firm Postmen DA. These pages were particularly active during Ukraine's 2019 elections, and were among those that many reporters and researchers, including @ChristopherJM @JonahFisherBBC and yours truly, were monitoring.

— Nina Jankowicz (@wiczipedia) July 8, 2020

I uh, reached Roger Stone by text for this https://t.co/tSm3Mqzydn pic.twitter.com/TyqIPdzit1

— Davey Alba (@daveyalba) July 8, 2020

These include operations in the US, Ukraine, Brazil, and across Latin America. In some of these cases, PR firms conducted the CIB; in others, we saw clear links to the staffers of political offices, former gov employees, or campaign officials themselves.

— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) July 8, 2020

Roger Stone denies involvement in alleged Facebook disinformation campaign

Also says Facebook's claim his social media accounts are linked to the far-right hate group Proud Boys are "categorically and probably false"!! (think he meant provably...) https://t.co/cFsbEDSP7H

— Hannah Murphy (@MsHannahMurphy) July 8, 2020

Just getting to post about this now. FB found and removed some interesting cases of coordinated inauthentic behavior. Among them, fake accounts on FB and Instagram, and Pages, some of them with links to Proud Boys, promoting Roger Stone between 2015-17.https://t.co/kSDeKWI5en

— Cindy Otis (@CindyOtis_) July 8, 2020

On the Brazilian takedown - full attribution "individuals associated with the Social Liberal Party and some of the employees of the offices of Anderson Moraes, Alana Passos, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro and Jair Bolsonaro" - here's @DFRLab. https://t.co/ByZZzYX9lB

— Ben Nimmo (@benimmo) July 8, 2020

'these networks originated in Canada and Ecuador, Brazil, Ukraine, and the United States'

to folks who keep underestimated the eastern european disinfo battlefield and its global impact — read this and think again. https://t.co/dznCQOxmYq

— Maksym Eristavi (@MaximEristavi) July 8, 2020

Two of the networks FB took down today were run by professional agencies, continuing the social-media-manipulation-for-hire trend we wrote about earlier this year.

The other two networks are attributed to Roger Stone and Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro. https://t.co/fH27YxTYpE

— Jane Lytvynenko (@JaneLytv) July 8, 2020

? Facebook removed coordinated inauthentic behavior targeting politically-oriented pages and groups in the US, Ukraine, Brazil, and Ecuador.

What's important? They had *their own domestic* audiences in their sights.

Some observations to follow.https://t.co/oIUvlcH8SG

— Nina Jankowicz (@wiczipedia) July 8, 2020

Here’s the report by @Graphika_NYC which includes forensics and specimens of Stone’s online deception op https://t.co/Lr4M97jD6i

— David Carroll ? (@profcarroll) July 8, 2020

Also worth noting that most of this activity was aimed at domestic audiences. Disinfo starts at home, guys.

On the U.S. front, here's the Graphika report on the Stone takedown. https://t.co/4tHQpoAAZ8 pic.twitter.com/bJY18PDJ7m

— Ben Nimmo (@benimmo) July 8, 2020

HAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAA *snort* BWAAAAHAHAHAAAAA GOODBYE ROGER also enjoy the superseding indictments ?

Stone operated a troll/bot net that worked with Russian intelligence in 2016. GOODBYE! ? https://t.co/da4S84wfOt

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) July 8, 2020

It is depressing to see that it took more than a year for them to come down, particularly because so many of us were sounding the alarm bell 12+ months ago, but I'm glad that Facebook is honing in on this type of activity. Here's why:

— Nina Jankowicz (@wiczipedia) July 8, 2020

This is interesting—Facebook found the Stone network of "coordinated inauthentic behavior" thanks to the newly unsealed search warrants. Thanks, news organizations who litigated over this! https://t.co/kwZJVnOkI0 pic.twitter.com/pMzZjZo4xK

— Quinta Jurecic (@qjurecic) July 8, 2020

Much of the discussion about CIB is focused on foreign interference, which is a serious threat we all need to be concerned with. These takedowns are an important reminder that influence operations are also an increasingly domestic phenomenon.

— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) July 8, 2020

Big day in taking down information operations. Congrats to the relevant FB teams and I'm looking forward to the write-ups. https://t.co/PkP4G9NvpW

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 8, 2020

“Mr. Stone’s accounts were part of the 54 Facebook accounts, 50 pages and four Instagram accounts that Facebook said were associated with the Proud Boys network.”https://t.co/kkGAYPI5CI

— Sarah Mojarad (@Sarah_Mojarad) July 9, 2020