Politics

2019 presidential election: Facebook closes pro-Buhari accounts

Published

5 years ago

May 18, 2019

Facebook has closed some accounts allegedly set up by an Israeli firm named Archimedes , which were used to dent the image of Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party , Atiku Abubakar , and boosting the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari , Associated Press reports .

The report by United States think tank , Atlantic Council’ s Digital Forensic Research Lab , which analyses misinformation online , said some sample posts removed from Facebook appeared to praise President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress and smear his leading opponent , Atiku.
Many of the pages and accounts were discovered to be linked to a Tel Aviv – based political consulting and lobbying firm named Archimedes .

On its sparse website of African stock images , the company advertises its deliberate efforts to conduct disinformation campaigns , boasting that it takes “ every advantage available in order to change reality according to our client ’ s wishes ” through “ unlimited online accounts operation . ”

Facebook banned Archimedes from its platform on Thursday for its “ coordinated and deceptive behaviour ” and conducted a sweeping takedown of dozens of accounts and hundreds of pages primarily aimed at disrupting elections in African countries , with some scattered activity in South – East Asia and Latin America .

Overall , the misleading accounts had reached some 2 . 8 million users , and the pages had engaged over 5 , 000 followers, according to Facebook ’ s estimates .
One of the pages that Facebook cancelled appeared filled with viral misinformation attacking Atiku, a former Vice – President .
The report further read , “ The page ’ s banner image showed Abubakar as Darth Vader, the Star Wars villain , holding up a sign reading , ‘ Make Nigeria Worse Again ’ .
“ Another page with almost identical visuals, although significantly excluding the Darth Vader mask , purported to support Atiku, with the slogan ‘ Team Atiku for President ’ .
“ The report identified the page as a covert attempt to infiltrate Atiku’ s audience of potential voters and manipulate their views , gradually spamming them with antithetical content and diverting them to the ‘ Make Nigeria Worse ’ page . ”

The report also featured a page that explicitly boosted Buhari , with amateur videos eulogising the accomplishments of his Presidency as though he were not locked in a tight battle for re – election .
According to the report , several of the removed pages attempted to defame candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party .
It said one page with artificially amplified audience engagement , called “ Rivers Violence Watch , ” pumped out political propaganda while posing as a neutral monitor of election violence , using the page description to mask its efforts .
Most of the pages claimed to be run by local Nigerian users , but in fact , were managed from Israel .
It said fake news flooded Nigerians and played a central role in the recent national election .

The accounts were also found to have been used in spreading rumours and promoting violence in an election which revealed Nigeria’ s fault lines along ethnic and religious divides .
Despite the overt political messaging of these inauthentic pages , the Digital Forensics lab could not assign a particular ideological motive to Archimedes ’ campaigns , given the diversity and scope of its general operations .
Rather , the company , which poured over $ 800, 000 into deceptive content over the past several years , appeared profit – driven . The report did not probe the origins of its cash flow , and it was not clear whether political actors in Nigeria or other countries where the campaigns took off had paid for the company ’ s “ strategic consulting . ”
Facebook has in the last year closed down over one billion accounts used in spreading fake news .

Atiku has dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission and the President to court , accusing them of stealing his victory at the poll . He claims the figures on INEC ’ s servers show that he won the poll but the results were doctored in favour of Buhari .