Facebook Nails Chinese Companies Creating Fake Accounts

It seems Chinese companies have been creating fake accounts for use in influence campaigns.  The Journal says, "Starting in 2017, the companies marketed and sold fake accounts in large quantities through six websites with similar domain names to Facebook such as myfacebook.cc and 9xiufacebook.com, according to the complaint filed Friday in San Francisco federal court." 

You have to say these kinds of accounts are far from covert since they are advertised and openly sold.  We can applaud Facebook for doing something about it, but this kind of thing appears to be
simple exploitation for profit and not anything tied to a real government campaign of influence.  Governments don't advertise accounts for use by anyone who can afford them.  They hide the owner and the people using them with fake names and dummy addresses.