The operation used four Facebook accounts and 31 Instagram accounts that posed as Americans and shared AI-generated political memes.
Meta removed a network of Facebook and Instagram accounts tied to an Iran-based operation that used artificial intelligence to target US audiences with political content, the company told Axios.
Meta said it disrupted four Facebook accounts and 31 Instagram accounts linked to Iran-based operators. The accounts shared memes about US politics, the Israel-Palestine conflict and immigration, including AI-generated memes.
Operators posed as US activists, students and graphic designers living in cities including Washington, DC, San Diego and Atlanta. They tagged journalists and politicians and messaged public figures and news outlets seeking collaborations, but none succeeded.
About 79,400 Instagram accounts followed at least one of the inauthentic meme accounts, according to Meta. The company described the campaign’s reach as moderate and its engagement as meaningful but limited.
The operators routed traffic through proxy and hosting services in the US and Canada to make the campaign’s Iranian origin harder to detect. Meta said it is investing in AI tools to identify and remove coordinated inauthentic behavior faster.
