Vietnam Veterans Targets of Fake Facebook Pages

The Fake Facebook Pages Targeting Vietnam Veterans
The Atlantic
NATASHA BERTRAND
April 12, 2018

The pages are operated out of Eastern Europe and the social network took almost two months to shut one of them down.

Visitors' shadows are seen cast on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall Yuri Gripas / Reuters

Earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised lawmakers that his platform would crack down on fake accounts and foreign influence. But at least two Facebook pages linked to websites operating out of Bulgaria are still targeting U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War, according to a letter obtained by The Atlantic that was sent to lawmakers by a nonprofit veteran’s organization.

The U.S. military community is not a new or unusual target for foreign influence operations. A study published in October by the University of Oxford found that three websites linked to Russia—Veteranstoday.com, Veteransnewsnow.com and Southfront.org—engaged in “significant and persistent interactions” with veterans during the election, concluding in part that veterans are targeted because they tend to be “community leaders” trusted by the public.
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