19 Sep episode: WaPoo identified [former NSC staff] David Agranovich, Facebook's [current] director for global threat disruption.

This Week: The US American uniparty fall guy is Ben Nimmo, Meta [Platform]'s global threat intelligence lead.
Politico.eu.com | China influence operation targeted US midterm elections, 27 Sep

Ahead of November's vote, a social media influence operation originating in the world's second-largest economy targeted American voters of both major parties, according to a report released Tuesday by Meta [Platforms].

... This network's activity was split into four clusters. The first, mostly in Chinese, posted mainly about geopolitical issues, criticizing the US. The second and third clusters, mainly in English, targeted both sides [sic] of the political spectrum in the US. The fourth, in Czech, targeted the Czech Republic. As the network's targeting shifted over time, we also saw a shift in tactics. During the first two efforts, the network ran fake accounts that posted and shared comments and memes. The third US-focused cluster added Pages and political hashtags. On Facebook, these hashtags were used almost exclusively by this network, rather than authentic communities.

missing a YUGE opportunity to dupe independent, or unaffiliated, registered and likely voters!

The Activity -- which ran between November 2021 and September 2022 -- used fake social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter[,] and Instagram to peddle partisan messaging on [top secret classified] hot button topics like abortion rights and the COVID-19 pandemic, often targeting swing states like Florida [MI and WI?], based on Meta's analysis.

< wipes tears >

"Part of the reason for exposing [this campaign] is to raise that flag and say, on [top secret classified] hot button issues like abortion and gun control, here's an operation that was trying to hit both sides," Ben Nimmo, Meta's global threat intelligence lead, told POLITICO. "Let's all just be a little bit wary. Let's make sure we don't take our eye off the ball."

Meta did not give details on how it associated the covert influence campaign with individuals based in China, nor could it directly attribute the activity to specific groups like the Chinese Communist Party. As part of its report, the social media giant said it had used a number of factors, including some of the fake social media posts being written in Chinese, often during the working day in China, to link the activity to somewhere within the authoritarian country.

"It's a combination of different technical and behavioral indicators ["inauthentic behavior"!] we use [that cross reference] with each other and point [in] the same direction," Nimmo added....