Meta officials say the US stopped proactively sharing information on foreign influence operations, as the company releases its Q3 2023 Adversarial Threat Report
The reported end of proactive U.S. information-sharing matters because Meta’s enforcement and public reporting rely in part on timely identification of coordinated foreign activity.
First-order effects
Meta may receive fewer advance signals from U.S. authorities about suspected foreign influence operations, shifting more detection and attribution work onto its own threat-investigation teams.
The Q3 report makes the loss of this channel visible to policymakers and users, even as Meta continues to document adversarial activity.
Second-order effects
Slower or less complete government-to-platform referrals could delay cross-platform disruption when campaigns operate across several services.
Other large platforms may face the same gap, increasing the value—and cost—of their own intelligence, trust-and-safety, and investigative capabilities.
Third-order effects
If reduced proactive sharing persists, foreign-influence defense could become more fragmented: platforms will have uneven visibility, while public agencies retain intelligence that is less readily translated into platform action.
The episode points to a more contested model of platform-state coordination, in which disclosure, attribution, and enforcement are less tightly coupled.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from routine public-private coordination on influence operations toward more constrained and uneven information exchange.
NEW: The federal government is no longer warning Meta about foreign influence campaigns, a dramatic shift that comes amid a legal campaign against the Biden administration's communication with tech platforms. w/ @NaomiNixWrites https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@frankfigliuzzi1
Frank Figliuzzi on x
Our polarization pleases our adversaries.Facebook, Instagram close China-based accounts aimed at further dividing Americans prior to 2024 elections: Meta closes nearly 4,800 fake accounts in China that tried to polarize US voters | Meta | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/…
@ritholtz
Barry Ritholtz on x
A win for the Pro-Putin lobby in Congress U.S. stops helping Big Tech spot foreign meddling amid GOP legal threats https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@anneapplebaum
Anne Applebaum on x
And there it is: The American far-right's campaign to make it easier for Russian, Chinese and other foreign propaganda to circulate more easily in the US is succeeding https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@bendobrown
Benjamin Strick on x
New @Meta Adversarial Threat Report details the threat landscape ahead of 2024. No surprises as to who the most prolific actors are: Russia, Iran and China. More takeaways on the report in this thread 🧵👇 [image]
@snlyngaas
Sean Lyngaas on x
Meta executives confirmed that US officials haven't shared information with the platform related to foreign election interference since July, when Republican attorneys general brought a legal challenge to that threat-sharing work https://www.cnn.com/...
@zilevandamme
Phumzile Van Damme on x
In its latest quarterly report on adversarial threats, Meta says China is an increasing source of covert influence and disinformation campaigns, which could get supercharged by advances in generative AI. Only Russia and Iran rank above China. https://www.cnbc.com/...