RAND<\/a> researchers alleged that the group displayed a number of \u201ccult characteristics,\u201d including \u201cintense ideological exploitation and isolation,\u201d \u201csexual control,\u201d \u201cemotional isolation,\u201d and other such tactics.
\nWhile the U.S. has accounted for much of the MEK\u2019s lobbying focus, the troll farm it ran was apparently focused more on Iranian and diaspora audiences. Facebook says the majority of posts by the troll farm were in Farsi with a smaller number in Arabic and English.<\/p>\nIn terms of content, the troll farm pushed traditional MEK messages that criticized Iran\u2019s clerical regime and praised the MEK itself. The trolls also tried to push its audience towards websites that served as fronts for the MEK without disclosing their association with it. The effort, however, was mostly a failure, as the operations \u201cachieved little to no audience visibility,\u201d garnering few followers on its various accounts, groups, and pages, according to Facebook.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
The operation posted content on a schedule that aligned with Albania\u2019s time zone and bore \u201challmarks of a so-called troll farm\u2014a physical location where a collective of operators share computers and phones to jointly manage a pool of fake accounts as part of an influence operation,\u201d according to a report on the operation released by Facebook.<\/p>\n
Reports of MEK-run troll operations on other social media platforms surfaced long before the recent takedown by Facebook. In 2019, The Intercept reported that Heshmat Alavi, a pro-MEK Twitter account with over 80,000 followers, was run by a team of four MEK social media trolls, according to an MEK defector interviewed by the news outlet. Twitter briefly suspended the Alavi account after The Intercept\u2019s reporting but subsequently reinstated it.<\/p>\n
Facebook announced its identification and enforcement against the MEK\u2019s 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.
\nThe company also announced the takedown of a small Iranian-run 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 Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
In a press conference, Facebook\u2019s head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the scale of the latest monthly takedown of coordinated inauthentic behavior was a reflection of the company\u2019s investments in detection and enforcement\u2014making such operations more difficult for adversaries to pursue in the future.
\nIn a statement released after Facebook\u2019s announcement, the MEK denied any affiliation with the accounts and called the company\u2019s report \u201cabsolutely false.\u201d<\/p>\n
by Daily Beast<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cult-like MEK, whose allies have included Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, and John Bolton, was linked to hundreds of sham FB profiles\u2014some using AI-made photos of fake users. Facebook says…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[21405,24450,52,20,24451],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-12361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-organizations-propaganda-system","tag-ashraf-3-camp-mek-base-in-albania","tag-facebook","tag-mujahedin-khalq-destructive-cult","tag-third-view-mek","tag-troll-farm","module-article","ctype-story","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12361"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=12361"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=12361"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=12361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"MEK](\"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/MEK_troll_factory_Albania_1.jpg\")