As a part of a larger takedown, Facebook took down 131 accounts, 23 pages, four groups, and 14 Instagram accounts on October 21, 2019, identifying them as part of an operation that originated in Iran and focused on audiences throughout Latin America and the United States.

These online assets engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” Facebook’s term for when groups, pages, and accounts work together to mislead people about who they are and what they are doing on the platform. The DFRLab had access to seven pages prior to their removal, five of which had content beyond selfies and other apolitical posts.

In its blog post, Facebook explained about the subset of the assets targeting Latin America:

The Page administrators and account owners typically represented themselves as locals, used fake accounts to post in Groups and manage Pages posing as news organizations, as well as directed traffic to off-platform domains. They frequently repurposed Iranian state media stories on topics like Hezbollah, conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, tensions between Israel and Palestine and Iran and the US, war in Yemen, as well as posted content tailored for a particular country including domestic news, geopolitics and public figures.

In particular, these assets targeted audiences in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico with messaging critical of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, as well as with a smaller number of posts on domestic politics in Latin America. The range of topics discussed included Saudi Arabia’s attacks against Yemen, U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, Israeli policies toward Palestine, spy drones, and information compiled during the October 2019 protests in Ecuador.

Also included in the pages the DFRLab had access to was one seemingly promoting the Black Lives Matter movement (“BLMNews”) in the United States.

In total, the five analyzed pages had 14,605 followers and 13,943 likes. A page called Elintelecto (“The intellect”), allegedly based in Lima, Peru, accounted for 82 percent of those followers.

Distribution of followers per page. Elintelecto reached 11,922 followers and 11,311 likes. (Source: @estebanpdl/DFRLab)

Iran-based assets

Based on Facebook Page Transparency data, only four out of the five analyzed pages had manager locations listed.