As the debate continues about whether TikTok is a threat, findings like these are not likely to help TikTok’s position.
Today, Meta published its latest “Adversarial Threat Report,” which outlines the various coordinated operations that were detected and removed from Meta’s apps in Q1 2023.
Among them are the following:
““We removed 37 Facebook accounts, 13 Pages, five Groups, and nine Instagram accounts for violating our policies against coordinated injustice. This network originated in China and targeted Sikh communities around the world, including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, the UK and Nigeria.”
China-based groups have long been active in using social media platforms to attempt to influence public opinion on issues related to China’s political ambitions. Indeed, China-based networks are among the largest and most persistent, and there is direct evidence suggesting these groups are funded by the Chinese government with the goal of influencing global public opinion and swaying outcomes favorable to the Chinese Communist Party.
As such, TikTok, a Chinese-owned app with significant influence outside of China, would seem to be an ideal vector. Although few details have been publicly released about the exact threat TikTok poses in this regard, logic would suggest that TikTok may pose a risk now and/or in the future.
While more information may emerge on this front as part of TikTok’s challenge to the US Senate ruling, findings such as this one are yet another indication of the scale and ambition of these groups – and another reason why TikTok is under such scrutiny.
Meta also thwarted attacks from Bangladesh, Croatia, Iran and Israel in the first quarter, and continues to fight a Russian influence network known as “Doppelganger” that aims to undermine international support for Ukraine.
“Around two years ago, we were the first technology company to publicly report on Doppelganger, an operation centered around a large network of websites masquerading as legitimate news media. The EU Disinformation Lab and the Digital Forensics Lab simultaneously published open-source research. In December 2022, we were the first to publicly attribute it to two Russian companies sanctioned by the EU in 2023 and by the US Treasury in 2024.”
Meta also provides specific updates on the use of AI in misinformation and deception campaigns and how efforts to combat it are working so far.
““So far, we have not seen any new tactics leveraging GenAI that would impede their ability to disrupt the adversary network behind them. We have seen instances of photo and image creation, AI-generated video news readers, text generation, etc. At this time, we have not seen threat actors leverage photo-realistic AI-generated media of politicians as a broader trend.”
The qualifier “for now” is important because over time, we expect to see more and more of these groups adopt AI-based tactics, but while Meta continues to improve and refine its detection system, it is not yet a major factor.
“While we continually monitor and evaluate the risks associated with new and evolving technologies like AI, so far existing industry defenses, such as a focus on behavior rather than content when countering adversarial threat activity, are already in place and appear to be effective.”
Overall, the threat actors identified in Meta’s latest report remain largely the same and appear to be driven by roughly the same ambitions, as Meta continues to evolve its approach to detect and take down each actor before they can have a significant impact.
But the report also highlights the fact that this type of activity is persistent and constantly evolving. Foreign adversaries will always seek to leverage broad, influential mediums like social media to spread their messages, which is why it’s important that Meta and other platforms continue to work to improve their detection and takedown efforts.
Meta’s latest “Hostile Threat Report” can be found here.
