A Facebook page called “Vietnam Vets of America” has been shut down by Facebook after being found to be an “imposter” page, according to a recent Stars and Stripes report.
Imposter page (Twitter)
The imposter page was reported by Vietnam Veterans of America, a veterans service organization that was founded in 1978. The organization’s own Facebook page has more than 118,000 followers.
The imposter page had nearly 200,000 followers and was creating “politically divisive posts,” according to the report.
The organization said the imposter page “violated the intellectual property of a congressionally chartered veterans service organization,” the report said. Vietnam Veterans of America had alerted Facebook to the page months ago.
Imposter page (Twitter)
“Vietnam Vets of America violated a section of the social media network’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities about protecting other people’s rights, said a Facebook official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information had not been publicly released,” according to Stars and Stripes.
Vietnam Veterans of America on Tuesday released a statement on its website about the imposter page.
The full statement is below:
“We’re glad to see that Facebook is taking seriously imposter pages targeting Vietnam veterans and their supporters on social media,” said John Rowan, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America. “For months we had been in contact with Facebook’s Security Team and more recently their Intellectual Property Team regarding a suspicious page that was using derivatives of the names “Vietnam Veterans of America” and “American Veterans.” Today, we received confirmation from Facebook that the imposter page, ‘Vietnam Vets of America,’ was finally shut down.”
Since late 2016, the imposter Facebook page, “Vietnam Vets of America,” had been growing in followers at an exponential rate. While many of its posts were benign, it frequently shared altered and deceptive news regarding inflammatory issues, such as the defacing of veteran monuments. In August 2017, VVA first reached out to Facebook regarding the activity of the suspicious page. By the middle of October 2017, the imposter paged had garnered nearly 200,000 followers. We’re encouraged by Facebook’s action this week, but want to reemphasize that we believe the VA and DoD have a role to play in protecting troops and veterans from influence and deception by foreign actors.”
