The world’s largest social media community and leading advertising platform Facebook has released the findings of its May Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior. According to the May CIB report, Facebook has removed multiple pages, accounts and groups linked to the users in the middle-east countries of Tunisia and Iraq. These pages were found to be flouting Facebook’s networking norms. These groups specifically targeted people in other countries by misleading them with fake accounts, circulating misinformation and involving in numerous spam-like behaviors on Facebook, and Instagram.

What is Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB)?

Facebook has been building on its social media security algorithm for the last 3-4 years to safeguard customer privacy. Inauthentic behavior include the use of the artificial promotion or amplification of pages for ad sales, spamming, and fake engagement through impersonation and malvertising. The practices related to swaying public opinion through misinformation and promoting foreign influence on local/regional debates (political and social) are also considered as CIB.

CIB protocols are constantly monitored using AI and manual supervision, even as governments and enforcement agencies work with Facebook to identify CIB and taken down malicious posts, pages, groups and accounts.

Which activities risk being tagged “CIB”?

Political, social and fake news promoters are most likely to be pulled down as per CIB guidelines. If a page or profile is found to be impersonating a local politician or political party, CIB automation systems would pull those down.

For example, in May 2020, Facebook’s CIB report has specified that the social media company removed 324 pages linked to Iraq and 446 pages linked to Tunisia. They were found to be misleading certain specific demography of social media users on Facebook and Instagram by ‘masquerading’ as local businesses and service providers.

To further improve Facebook experience, the company announced the launch of a new feature- “Manage Activity.”