As anti-vaccination groups in the United States tried to create their own version of Canada’s disruptive “Liberty Convoy,” foreign content producers tried to support those efforts for the benefit of the United States. their own interests. This week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook told Reuters and NBC News it recently removed a number of “convoy of trucks” groups and pages run by scammers in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and other countries.
The company says many of these groups have recently changed their names to apply terms related to terms like “truck”, “freedom” and “convoy” in the hope of taking advantage of the popularity of the product. sudden interest in protests taking place across borders. Many of those pages include links to websites selling pro-Trump and anti-vaccination merchandise. Also, most accounts participating in those groups are tied to real people. And so you run into a situation where foreign players are trying to monetize extreme individuals.
“Speaking out against government mandates is not against Meta’s policies,” a Meta spokesperson told the network. “However, we removed many groups and Pages for repeatedly violating our policy on banning QAnon content and groups run by spammers in different countries around the world.”
The company said it will monitor the situation. A spokesperson for Meta told Engadget: “We continue to see scammers grabbing any hot issue that gets people’s attention, including ongoing protests.” “Over the past week, we have removed groups and pages run by spammers from different countries around the world that used abusive tactics to mislead people as to their origins and popularity. variables of content to drive them to off-platform sites to monetize ad clicks. ”
In the more than two weeks since “Freedom Convoy“In Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian capital was crippled by anti-vaccination protesters, who used their trucks and cars to block the entrance to the city center. The protest drew a large group of far-right individuals and groups, including Canada’s QAnon.”Queen. ” In Toronto and other cities Across the country, police have warned healthcare workers not to exfoliate in public while protests continue. Those same protests have also blocked important borders between the United States and Canada, causing Manager Biden to push the federal government into action.
Based on NBC News, anti-vaccination groups in the US plan to hold similar rallies in cities around the country. On Facebook, Telegram, and voice chat app Zello, these groups urged their members to travel to Washington DC and Los Angeles on March 5. Involvement of foreign actors tries to promote push those efforts to reflect in some ways what happened in 2016 when Russia interfere in the presidential election.
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