A fake political group that recruited a real candidate in Montana got banned on Facebook

Meta’s latest round of account takedowns includes a fake political group that ran dozens of dummy accounts in an attempt to recruit Americans to run for office. The social network detailed the scheme in its latest report on coordinated inauthentic behavior on its platform.

According to Meta, the fake accounts, pages and Facebook groups were trying to prop up a fictitious political group called “Patriots Run Project,” that encouraged people to challenge Republican and Democratic “elites” by running for office. In all, Meta uncovered 124 Facebook accounts, pages and groups as well as three Instagram accounts. The group primarily targeted people in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, and spent $50,000 in Facebook ads.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit that researches disinformation and extremism previously about the Patriots Run Project and their Facebook presence. The group, they said, “called for followers to run for office on a pro-Trump, anti-establishment platform focused on many of the same issues that motivate the right-wing movement: gun rights, border security, ‘traditional values’ and combatting election fraud.”

It’s not clear exactly who was behind the bizarre campaign. Meta said in its report they “found links to individuals associated with a US-based on-platform entity called RT Group,” but didn’t elaborate. The company’s researchers noted the group was relatively adept at disguising themselves. They used fake accounts they “acquired” from Bangladesh, and relied on proxies to make it appear as if they lived in the states they targeted.

While Meta’s researchers said they were able to disrupt the group before it was able to establish a large audience on its platform, Politico has reported that the group was successful in recruiting one Montana man for Congress, though it’s unclear if he interacted with the group on Facebook. During a briefing with reporters, Meta noted that Patriots Run Project was also active on X and that its websites are still online.

The company’s researchers also shared more about what they are tracking ahead of the US presidential election. As with other recent elections, Russia-based groups are likely to target US audiences on Facebook, according to David Agranovich, Meta’s security policy director for threat disruption. “I think we should expect to see Russian attempts to target election-related debates, particularly when they touch on support for Ukraine,” Agranovich said. “We expect Russia-based campaigns to promote supportive commentary about candidates opposing aid to Ukraine, and criticize those who advocate for aiding Ukraine’s defenses.”