Meta has released the 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) report in which the tech giant has reviewed CIB enforcements and shared the ways in which it"ll be developing its threat reporting for the year 2022.
In 2021, Meta eliminated 52 networks that had participated in organized activities to "manipulate or corrupt public debate for a strategic goal, while relying centrally on fake accounts to mislead people about who"s behind them." These networks originated in 34 countries including Africa, the Middle East, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America.
In the same year, it also began publishing deep-dive internal research into significant operations that it investigated and disrupted to offer an understanding of the latest tactics and threat evolution. In December, Meta started expanding its beta research platform, with almost a hundred data sets, to more researchers across the globe studying influence operations. With the beta research platform, the company now offers access to raw data where "researchers can visualize and assess these operations both quantitatively and qualitatively," along with sharing its internal research and analysis.
Beginning in 2020, it has expanded its threat reporting to new areas such as cyber espionage, financially-motivated inauthentic behavior, and coordinated adversarial networks targeting people with brigading, mass reporting, and other harmful activities. The company says it will keep on adapting and expanding its reporting into new areas in 2022.
The press release also mentions:
We’ve seen an evolution in the global threats that companies like ours face and a significant increase in safety risks to our employees around the world. When we believe these risks are high, we will prioritize enforcement and the safety of our teams over publishing our findings. While this change won’t impact the actions we take against deceptive operations we detect, it means that — in what we hope to be rare cases — we won’t be sharing all network disruptions publicly.
In December, Meta removed 61 Facebook accounts, 151 Instagram accounts, 305 Pages, and 3 Groups, all of which were related to the CIB networks. To read the detailed December 2021 CIB report from Meta, head over to the dedicated webpage here.