Meta Platforms Inc. removed hundreds of Facebook accounts associated with covert influence campaigns from China, Israel, Iran, Russia and other countries, some of which used artificial intelligence tools to generate disinformation, according to the company’s quarterly threat report.
Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has seen threat actors rely on AI to produce fake images, videos and text in an effort to influence users on its sites. But the use of generative AI didn’t affect the company’s ability to disrupt those networks, Meta said Wednesday in the report.
Among the disinformation campaigns, the company found a deceptive network from China sharing AI-generated poster images of a fictitious pro-Sikh movement, and an Israel-based network posting AI-generated comments praising Israel’s military under the pages of media organizations and public figures. The company said it removed many of those networks before they were able to build audiences among authentic communities.
“Right now we’re not seeing gen AI being used in terribly sophisticated ways,” Meta’s policy director of threat disruption, David Agranovich, said Tuesday during a news briefing. Tactics such as creating AI-generated profile photos or using artificial intelligence to produce large volumes of spammy content, haven’t been effective so far, he said.
“But we know that these networks are inherently adversarial,” Agranovich said. “They’re going to keep evolving their tactics as their technology changes.”