Thailand-Cambodia conflict: Ceasefire fails online

Thailand and Cambodia may have reached a ceasefire to halt their border clashes, but cyber warriors are still battling online, daubing official websites with obscenities, deluging opponents with spam and taking pages down. The five-day conflict left more than 40 Read More …

YouTube cracks down on gambling videos trying to lure viewers to unapproved sites

YouTube is cracking down on content related to gambling as sports betting and other online prediction markets have taken off in the United States. The platform announced Tuesday it will no longer allow content that directs users to “unapproved” gambling Read More …

Meta takes down more than 2 million accounts in fight against pig butchering

Meta provided insight this week into the company’s efforts in taking down more than 2 million accounts that were connected to pig butchering scams on their owned platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Pig butchering scams are big business, with hundreds of Read More …

Fake X accounts promote COP hosts UAE, Azerbaijan

The social media platform X has for months been aflush with praise for United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan in posts shared by hundreds of profiles — and all found to be fake. Analysed by AFP over several days, the large-scale Read More …

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. It aimed to sow doubt Read More …

CIA allegedly made fake social media accounts to troll the Chinese government

The CIA allegedly launched a secret operation to troll Chinese officials and turn public opinion against them through leaked intelligence and negative news on social media. Reuters reports the operation began in 2019 and was also aimed at causing paranoia Read More …

Russian troll farms didn’t sway voters in 2016 election

A new in-depth study has concluded that the Russian government’s efforts to deploy troll farms on Twitter to sway the 2016 election did not have any measurable impact on the outcome of that race. The U.S. government has been largely Read More …

Twitter boosted Pentagon propaganda efforts in the Middle East

Twitter has allowed the Defense Department to use the social media platform to carry out a covert online propaganda and influence campaign for at least the last five years, the latest “Twitter Files” revealed Tuesday. At the behest of the Read More …

Meta links US military to fake social media influence campaigns

In its latest quarterly threat report, Meta said it had detected and disrupted influence operations originating in the US, and it calls out those it believes are responsible: the American military. Meta said it picked up on three major covert Read More …

Meta dismantles massive Russian network spoofing Western news sites

Meta says it took down an extensive network of Facebook and Instagram accounts pushing disinformation published on more than 60 websites that spoofed multiple legitimate news sites across Europe. This influence network mainly targeted Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, and the Read More …