Fake Facebook Accounts Latched On to Real U.S. Protest Groups

A fake account or page ‘just piggybacks onto real sentiment,’ and ‘can push others to increasingly polarized positions,’ a digital researcher says

Deepa Seetharaman and

Robert McMillan

Aug. 2, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

Organizers behind the newly revealed batch of fake Facebook accounts often sought to work alongside legitimate groups organizing rallies and protests in the U.S., marking a new strategy in efforts to sow discord through social media ahead of the midterm elections, a review of archived event listings shows.

The fake Facebook pages and accounts helped promote more than three dozen events in the last 15 months, most of them protesting the policies of President Donald Trump or promoting left-leaning causes, according to a Wall...