Fb throttled the story of the New York Submit, however gave these seedy Ukrainians a platform

Facebook said Wednesday it would reduce the spread of a New York Post story of making unconfirmed claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter pending a fact-verification review by the site’s partners.

But for more than a year now, the social network has provided a seedy group of Ukrainian activists – including one who has been classified by the US Treasury as an “active Russian agent” and is trying to interfere in the 2020 elections – a platform to launch unfounded or exposed conspiracies to spread theories about the Biden family.

These Ukrainians were key to assisting Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani in his efforts to smear the Bidens and help President Donald Trump get re-elected. Along the way, they have more than 200,000 followers and friends on Facebook, partly due to their popularity with supporters of the US President, who see them as sources of allegations related to Biden.

And when the story was published by the New York Post, the group celebrated on Facebook by once again spreading unconfirmed information about the Bidens.

Facebook did not immediately respond to questions about Ukrainians’ contributions.

The focus of the personal Facebook pages of three men – Andriy Telizhenko, Oleksandr Onyshchenko, and Andriy Derkach – were contributions to the history of the New York Post. While they didn’t directly share the link on the story, they did share links to reviews or pictures of it.

Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat and longtime employee of Giuliani who was a major source of alleged dirt on the Bidens, posted a picture of Trump that was a copy of Wednesday’s New York Post titled, “Biden Secret E-Mails. ”

Two hours later, Telizhenko posted a link to an article on a pro-Trump blog about another story in the New York Post, in which he wrote in English: “Senate Committee to Investigate Newly Found E-Mails from Hunter Biden”. And overnight he published a third post with another link to an article related to the Post’s report.

Posts were shared 5, 14 and 2 times, with 36, 13 and 7 likes at the time of publication. This is in line with commitment, which is consistent with previous contributions from Telizhenko.

Onyshchenko, another Giuliani employee and former Ukrainian lawmaker in the now-defunct pro-Russian Party of Regions, who is now a refugee for allegedly embezzling more than $ 120 million from a Ukrainian gas company, also shared the story .

In summary, Onyshchenko’s post was shared 22 times and received more than 145 likes. This is in line with engagement, which is in line, if not slightly above, with its usual contributions.

Derkach, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, who sanctioned the US Treasury last month and described it as “an active Russian agent for over a decade with close ties to Russian intelligence,” wrote in Russian about unconfirmed allegations he had previously countered the Bidens raised after the New York Post story was published.

He told BuzzFeed News from Kiev on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with the story of the New York Post but that he enjoyed reading it. He said he believed the report supported his own unsubstantiated allegations against the Bidens. He also referred BuzzFeed News to a recent video he shared on his social media platforms, including Facebook.

Derkach met Giuliani at least three times, including last December in Kiev, when he was walking past New York mayor’s documents that the two men claimed to show corruption on the part of the Biden. A Facebook post from that meeting, which contained three photos of the two men together in a hotel in Kiev, was shared 118 times, commented 38 times and liked 550 times.

Facebook was Derkach’s main platform for sharing content via leaked and edited audio recordings, allegedly from conversations Biden had as Vice President with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. US officials have flagged the disinformation of the records and the Biden campaign has stated that they are part of a Russian campaign to meddle in the elections and help Trump.

The footage, which has never been authenticated, provides no evidence to support the allegations that Biden misused his power to aid his son’s business interests in Ukraine.

Seven of the last nine videos Derkach posted on his Facebook page in the past five weeks dealt with the footage of Biden-Poroshenko and related documents. Together they have been viewed more than 83,000 times. Four of them are making appearances on pro-Russian Ukrainian television channels affiliated with Viktor Medvedchuk, a fellow Ukrainian lawmaker who is close friends with President Vladimir Putin.

Nina Jankowicz, a Disinformation Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, told BuzzFeed News that she believed Facebook may have tried to limit the spread of the New York Post story out of concern that the information it contained was obtained illegally were.

“It would be more difficult for them to take similar action with some of the other narratives filmed as part of the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy as they do not deal directly with illegal material or other direct violations of the Terms of Service.” She said.

But the Derkach recordings could. A Ukrainian investigation into her origin was launched earlier this year. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said in September that her office is also checking to see if they have been processed, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.