Meta officials warned in a new report Wednesday that China, Russia and Iran are coordinating "covert influence operations" ahead of the 2024 presidential election year, specifically arguing that the best way to deter foreign actors from hijacking American policies is through greater information sharing between the American government and social media companies.
In a third quarter "adversarial threat report" for November, Meta officials provided "key insights into the global threat environment and trends we anticipate facing our society and industry as we go into 2024 with its many elections around the world, including in the United States."
Deeming Russia, Iran and China "the most prolific geographical sources of foreign interference campaigns to date," the report also addresses challenges with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).
As for the "information environment ahead of 2024," Meta officials warned "foreign covert influence operations seek to hijack authentic partisan narratives" and said that as "perception hacking aims to sow doubt in democratic processes, evidence-based reporting is key to countering it."
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Meta stressed, "information sharing between industry, government and civil society is critical to detect and disrupt foreign threats early" ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
"While information exchange continues with experts across our industry and civil society, threat sharing by the federal government in the US related to foreign election interference has been paused since July," the report notes.
In what was considered a major First Amendment win in July, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration agencies to cease communication with social media companies to suppress the protected free speech of Americans regarding COVID-19 vaccines, elections and other issues.
But notably, Judge Terry Doughty, in the ruling filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, made exceptions allowing federal agencies to communicate with social media companies to warn about risks to national security and about criminal activity.
Meta argued in its third quarter report that sharing information between tech companies, governments and law enforcement has "proven critical to identifying and disrupting foreign interference early, ahead of elections." As an example, Meta said that prior to the 2020 elections it investigated and took down three covert influence operations from Russia, Mexico and Iran targeting the U.S., after receiving a tip from U.S. law enforcement about off-platform activity by these threat actors.
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"This type of information sharing can be particularly critical in disrupting malicious foreign campaigns by sophisticated threat actors who coordinate their operations outside of our platforms," the report says.
The July 4 ruling specifically states, however, that federal agencies are not prohibited from contacting social media companies "about criminal efforts to suppress voting, to provide illegal campaign contributions, of cyberattacks against election infrastructure, or foreign attempts to influence elections."
Ahead of 2024, Meta said covert information operations from China focus on foreign policies toward China, while Russia-origin campaigns focus on undermining support for Ukraine.
While Russian disinformation campaigns had been focusing on the war in Ukraine, Meta in the third quarter identified new clusters of websites focused directly on U.S. and European politics that began posting about the Israel-Hamas war and the "crisis in the Middle East as proof of American decline."
The larger of two Chinese influence operations included in the report focused on domestic politics in the United States and included fake accounts on Facebook with copied and pasted posts from American politicians on both sides of the aisle on X, possibly by design to "amplify partisan tensions."
