Efforts by Russian influence campaigns to stay undetected on social media ahead of next year's U.S. elections are undermining their ability to gain followers and spread divisive political messages, a senior Facebook executive told Reuters.
Social media users need to stand out from the crowd to gain traction online, but that type of behavior also helps Facebook and other platforms identify suspicious activity to then analyze for signs of foreign involvement, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy.
"If you are very, very loud, if you go viral very, very fast that's exactly the sort of thing that our automated systems will detect and flag," he said. "So when actors have really diligent, deliberate and effective operational security it weakens their ability to build an audience."'