Facebook Bans Russian Network For Misleading Campaign On COVID Vaccines

By Tharini Ilanchezhian

Facebook has banned about 300 accounts that were found propagating a false message that claimed that the vaccine drug synthesized by the firms AstraZeneca and Pfizer can possibly turn humans into chimpanzees.

The networks of accounts that have their origin from Russia have targeted the users of India, US and the Latin America.

According to the statements of a report published on Tuesday, the investigators had traced the origin of this misinformation to the campaign of Fazze, subordinate of a UK registered marketing company that operates mainly from Russia.

The company went on say that, this misleading information had taken its pace in various social media platforms such as Facebook and its sister platform, Instagram, tik-tok and YouTube. Popular influencers of these platforms were also urged to post this fake content with the use of certain hash-tags.

Facebook called this misleading anti-vaccine campaign, 'Disinformation Laundromat'. The actions carried out by this network have violated the policies of Facebook through coordinated and inauthentic behaviour.

The Russian linked marketing company started this campaign of spreading false information about COVID-19 by the months of November and December last year, when it started circulating memes that conveyed that the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca's vaccines turned humans into chimpanzees.

Also, in the past, Facebook has banned misinformation that spread about the novel corona virus and fake news that circulated about the fake cures and the deaths that were falsely linked to the fatalities caused by the virus. This information could possibly create a sense of panic and grief among the public and cause unnecessary tension.

During the month of July, President Joe Biden had placed accusation on the company stating that the company had "killed people" by facilitation the spread of fake information about corona virus. In spite of softening his claims, he played his part by urging Facebook to combat this issue with full-fledged efforts.

During the span of this pandemic, Facebook has reportedly removed a total of about 18 million posts that contained false information regarding the corona virus. The company doesn't share the exact number of people who get exposed to these false contents, which remains to be relatively huge.

Facebook still has its investigations ongoing and has questions about who had commanded the anti-vaccine campaign and allegedly commissioned Fazze to carry it out.