Meta said a wide social media disinformation campaign attributed to Chinese law enforcement has been tamed.

According to its latest report on the term that Meta dubs "coordinated inauthentic behavior," typically undeclared state-funded social media efforts meant to sway popular opinion, the company shed light on its recent revelation of an enormous fake-account, pages and group-related operation extolling flattering press about China. Facebook users saw 7,704 accounts, 954 pages and 15 groups have removed by Meta that have the possible linkages with disinformation campaign.

According to the report, the activity totaled "what appears to be the largest known cross-platform covert influence operation in the world." The campaign wasn't only limited to Facebook and Instagram; the footprint touched 50 other platforms, from X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit to Pinterest, Medium, and many other smaller sites.

"This network usually made positive commentary about China and its province Xinjiang and criticisms of the United States, Western foreign policies, and critics of the Chinese government including journalists and researchers," Meta's researchers wrote.

Though such a huge disinformation campaign is frightening, this one effort didn't draw much attention even with its huge size. The activity was based in China but aimed at Chinese speakers outside of China and target audiences in Taiwan, the United States, Australia, the U.K. and Japan. In doing so, the campaign seized control of Facebook pages notorious for spamming, but the accounts were marked by fake engagement from Vietnam, Bangladesh and Brazil, not the disinformation network's intended targets.

Despite its size, the influence campaign's fumbling did not go a very long way in achieving its aim :

"Despite the very large number of accounts and platforms it used, Spamouflage consistently struggled to reach beyond its own (fake) echo chamber. Many comments on Spamouflage posts that we have observed came from other Spamouflage accounts trying to make it look like they were more popular than they were. Only a few cases have come to light when Spamouflage content on Twitter and YouTube was amplified by real influencers, so one should not stop reporting and acting upon these attempts, but keep in mind that its ability to reach authentic audiences has consistently been very low.

Researchers were able to tie the campaign to known China-based campaign Spamouflage, which has been operation for years now. Meta rarely gets too loosey-goosey about linking such influence campaigns to specific government involvement, but it hardly hesitated to say this had firm ties to Chinese law enforcement.