May 14, 2021
Facebook says it has busted a troll farm run by the Mojahedin-e-Khalq that used artificial intelligence-generated fake faces to populate sham accounts.
The social media company linked the troll farm, based alongside the MEK’s headquarters in Albania, to 300 different assets on Facebook’s platform.
While the US has accounted for much of the MEK’s lobbying focus, the troll farm it ran was apparently focused more on Iranian and diaspora audiences. Facebook said the majority of posts by the troll farm were in Farsi with a smaller number in Arabic and English.
In terms of content, the troll farm pushed traditional MEK messages that criticized Iran’s clerical regime and praised the MEK itself. The trolls also tried to push its audience toward websites that serve as fronts for the MEK without disclosing their association with it. The effort, however, was mostly a failure, as the operations “achieved little to no audience visibility,” garnering few followers on its various accounts, groups, and pages, according to Facebook.
MEK trolls used a few different tactics to populate their Facebook properties with identities that would seem authentic. In some cases, the trolls used photos of famous poets as avatars. In a smaller number of cases, the trolls used AI-generated fake faces of people who didn’t exist.
Facebook announced its identification and enforcement against the MEK’s troll farm as part of its monthly announcement of coordinated inauthentic behavior operations on its platforms. The latest report included an announcement of takedowns from 11 different countries, ranging from Mexico to Egypt, Spain, and others.
The company also announced the takedown of a small Iranian government network aimed at sowing discord within Israeli politics. Facebook says it identified 29 Facebook accounts, two pages, and 10 Instagram accounts involved in an effort to masquerade as left-wing Israelis critical of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government.
In a statement released after Facebook’s announcement, the MEK denied any affiliation with the accounts and called the company’s report “absolutely false.”
