Sunday Read: Facebook bans hundreds of fake accounts generated by Epoch Times

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Facebook Friday (Dec. 20) removed hundreds of accounts generated by the Epoch Times which included profile photos produced using artificial intelligence, reported the New York Times.

The newspaper, founded in 2000 by followers of the Falun Gong religious movement “as an antidote to communist propaganda,” has reportedly been spending millions of dollars to reach new readers with its pro-Donald Trump message.

The Epoch Times is backed by the Falun Gong and tied to disinformation campaigns with a pro-Trump bias.

“This was a large, brazen network that had multiple layers of fake accounts and automation that systematically posted content with two ideological focuses: support of Donald Trump and opposition to the Chinese government,” Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said to the New York Times.

NBC News described the publication as "straddling the line between an ultraconservative news outlet and a conspiracy warehouse." The newspaper dramatically expanded its U.S. coverage following the election of Donald Trump and has become one of Trump's most ardent defenders on social media, spending at least $1.5 million on pro-Trump advertisements in the first half of 2019. 

Shortly after NBC News published its report, Facebook announced that it had banned the Epoch Times from advertising on the platform.

It featured the fake news Trump likes to rail against except, of course, when it benefits him. The Epoch Media group denied to the New York Times that it is behind the accounts removed by Facebook and claimed Facebook did not contact it.

Examples of postings from the fake accounts.

The Epoch Media Group acknowledged some of its former employees are involved with the banned accounts, but said that is not evidence of a connection.

According to Fast Company, the Epoch Times strongly opposes the Chinese communist party with a decidedly strong pro-Trump bias.

In news articles, videos and social-media posts, however, the Epoch Times — along with video production company New Tang Dynasty, which is also owned by parent organization Epoch Media Group — has repeatedly promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents claim that Trump is leading a secret effort to uncover a global pedophile ring that includes many top Democrats, media figures and other members of the so-called "Deep State."

In August, NBC News reported the Epoch Times purchased 11,000 pro-Trump ads on Facebook at a cost of $1.5 million in six months. The ads spread conspiracy theories and criticized “fake news” media. Facebook banned the Epoch Times from advertising following the report.

Both the Epoch Times and the Shen Yun dance troupe make up the bulk of the outreach efforts of the Falon Gong. Shen Yun isn't just a dance show. It's also part of an elaborate messaging strategy for Falun Gong — also known as Falun Dafa — a Chinese religious and political group persecuted within China that opposes the country's ruling party. The Chinese government began to consider the group a threat in 1999 due to its large following.

Dancers are trained at the Fei Tan Academy of the Arts, which is part of a 427-acre refuge for Falun Gong adherents in upstate New York. Profits from Shen Yun shows go towards maintaining the academy. The dance companies also, unusually, have a mixture of paid and unpaid performers, according to Hazlitt.

Shen Yun has a wide reach. It's playing in 94 different American cities this year, and has dozens of other shows in Canada, Mexico, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand — but not, as you can imagine, China.
Shen Yun has resisted talking to media about the accusations, but social media is full of comments to indicate that dance entertainment is not the primary goal of the company. 

On Friday, fact-checking website Snopes reported that an affiliated organization called “The BL,” for “The Beauty of Life,” has recently been posting pro-Trump ads on Facebook. The Epoch Times denies that it is tied to The BL, however, Snopes reported that it’s largely run by former executives from the paper.

Facebook has come under criticism for choosing to continue to publish political advertising that might have false claims.  Other online companies such as Google and Twitter, have overhauled their political ads policies and severely limited campaigns’ ability to target voters — and Facebook is under mounting pressure to do the same.

The Verge reports that those fake accounts would post BL content in other Facebook groups while pretending to be Americans. Pro-Trump messages were often posted “at very high frequencies” and linked to off-platform sites belonging to the BL and The Epoch Times. The accounts and pages were managed by individuals in the US and Vietnam.

In an apparent shift from its policy, Facebook said that it removed 610 accounts, 89 Facebook pages, 156 groups, and 72 Instagram accounts that were connected to the organization. Around 55 million accounts followed one of these Facebook pages and 92,000 followed at least one of the Instagram accounts. The organization spent nearly $9.5 million in advertisements, according to Facebook.

The Epoch Times claimed, "NBC News and MSNBC content about us has been riddled with inaccuracies, blatant errors, and misrepresentations.

“We take advantage of different marketing platforms to grow our subscriber base, including Facebook," The Epoch Times said in a statement to its readers. "On Facebook, we use video ads to drive subscriptions. The Epoch Times’ subscription advertisements have no political agenda. The only reason some of them are run as ‘political advertising’ is that online platforms require them to be categorized as such.”

"The Epoch Times is an independently owned media and not owned or operated by Falun Gong, as we clarified in our statement to NBC News," concluded the Epoch statement.