Facebook intelligence has exposed an Israeli company Archimedes Group has spent close to a million dollars to run fake account targeting African elections in the region.
The firm is reported to have spent more than $800,000 running Facebook ads and their accounts had almost 3 million followers, OccupyGh.com has learnt.
This was revealed in a blogpost made by Facebook on Thursday. The company targeted Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia but also had some activity targeting Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Facebook said the firm also “represented themselves as locals, including local news organizations, and published allegedly leaked information about politicians.”
One of the websites that belong to the Archimedes Group claims it “took significant roles in many political and public campaigns, among them Presidential elections and other social media projects all over the world.” “Archimedes has created and operates in its own unique field within the social media realm,” it added.
Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said the fake pages were used to post news on elections and to criticize political opponents. “The Page administrators and account owners frequently posted about political news, including topics like elections in various countries, candidate views and criticism of political opponents,” he posted.
Source: OccupyGh.com
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