By Joséphine Li

Image: Bob Al-Greene / Mashable

On October 8, Facebook said it had banned a company it believes ran fake accounts for the conservative group Turning Point USA. 

According to Facebook, Rally Forge, a marketing company that works on behalf of Turning Point USA, has launched a campaign that relied upon fake accounts that posted praise for President Donald Trump and criticism of former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

The campaign included tactics like commenting on the Facebook pages of major national American media outlets. The alleged activity was first identified through an investigation by The Washington Post, which prompted Facebook to look into Rally Forge. 

According to a report Facebook released on October 8, most of these accounts used stock profile photos and posed as right-leaning individuals from across the US. When reviewing content posted in 2018, Facebook found that some of these accounts posed as left-leaning individuals to comment on content as well. Instead of posting their own content, this activity was mostly centered around commenting on news articles written by news organizations and public figures.

In the report, Facebook also added that the most recent activity included creating what they call “thinly veiled personas” whose names were subtle variations on users’ real names and whose sole activity on their platform was associated with this deceptive campaign. As of now, Facebook has permanently banned those accounts for Rally Forge. 

As of today, Facebook says that it has removed 55 Facebook pages, 76 Instagram accounts and 200 Facebook accounts as a result of the investigation. Over 370,000 accounts followed one or more of the Facebook pages and over 22,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts. 

 

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Rally Forge did not respond to a request for comment immediately. When contacted for comment, Turning Point USA said that Rally Forge was actually associated with Turning Point Action. Unlike Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action is an independent legal entity from Turning Point USA, it is a non-profit organization that allows for certain political activities. Turning Point Action said in a statement that Facebook’s press release in question was in reference to a project for Turning Point Action, a 501c4, an entirely separate entity.

The main content of the statement of Turning Point Action is that they are working hard to operate within social platforms’ terms of service on all of its communications and projects and they are hoping to work closely with Facebook to rectify any misunderstanding. 

Facebook said it was unclear whether the group had knowledge of the tactics used by the marketing company. As a result, Facebook did not ban Turning Point USA or its president, Charlie Kirk.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said in an interview with reporters that the operations the company has removed recently are “younger” and have less of a following than previously removed operations. That means diminished returns and diminished operations. Gleicher added, “We know that these actors will continue to try to find a path around what the enforcement is put in place. But what we have found is that the combination of expert investigation and automated enforcement means that these operations are smaller, lasting less time and reaching fewer people before they get caught.”