United States-based firm, Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, has revealed that an Israeli firm named Archimedes used some Facebook accounts to dent the image of Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, while boosting the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Following the report, Facebook has closed many of the accounts, all of which were discovered to be linked to the Tel Aviv-based political consulting and lobbying firm, Archimedes.
On its website, the company flagrantly advertises its 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.”
This fuels suspicion that the firm might have been originally contracted to boost APC’s chances during the February elections.
According to Facebook, it 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.
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The misleading accounts were said to have 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.”
In the report, there is 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.
Several of the removed pages attempted to defame candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, and appeared to be run by local Nigerian users, but in fact, were managed from Israel.
The report lamented that 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.