MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook has permanently banned the Arizona-based marketing firm behind a troll farm-like operation that allegedly paid teenagers to pump out scripted disinformation and other conservative talking points on social media, according to a report Thursday.
The Washington Post reported that Facebook made the decision following an investigation prompted by reporting in the Post last month. The social media company found the firm, Rally Forge, was working on behalf of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA.
According to the Post, Turning Point Action — an affiliate of Turning Point USA – hired teens, some of them minors, to generate thousands of messages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in recent months using both accounts that included their real names as well as fake accounts.
The messages – some false and others simply partisan – were mainly replies to posts by Democratic politicians and news organizations. The people behind the posts were directed about what to say and did not disclose they were being paid by Turning Point Action.
The operation resembled a lower-tech version of the Russian bots and trolls that interfered with the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook has removed 200 accounts and 55 pages, as well as 76 Instagram accounts, related to the operation. All together, they had more than 400,000 followers across the two platforms.
Facebook, however, did not penalize Turning Point USA or its president, Charlie Kirk, saying it could not determine the extent to which they were aware of the violations by Rally Forge, which was hired to handle the campaign’s day-to-day activity.
After already suspending several hundred accounts allegedly related to the operation last month, Twitter booted another 262 Thursday but also took no action against Turning Point USA.
Experts in disinformation criticized the decision to go easy on Turning Point USA, saying it would send a signal to similar organizations that they can get away with social media manipulation as long as they outsource their activity, the Post reported.
Rally Forge President and CEO Jake Hoffman has not yet responded to the Post’s request for comment.
Austin Smith, Turning Point Action’s national field director, last month called comparisons of the operation to a troll farm a “gross mischaracterization.”
“This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia,” Smith said in a statement to the Post.
