October 31st 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday that it has removed dozens of accounts affiliated with Russia and have been targeting eight African countries including Sudan.
“Today, we removed three networks of accounts, Pages and Groups for engaging in foreign interference — which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign actor — on Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook said in a statement seen by Nyamilepedia.
“They originated in Russia and targeted Madagascar, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya,” the statement further reads.
“We found this activity as part of our internal investigations into Russia-linked, suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior in Africa.”
The statement further said around 17 accounts, 18 pages, three groups and six Instagram accounts which originated in Russia targeting Sudan specifically.
“We removed 17 Facebook accounts, 18 Pages, 3 Groups and six Instagram accounts that originated in Russia and focused primarily on Sudan,” the statement said.
All the accounts were linked to Prigozhin, a Russian tycoon close to Vladimir Putin. The US has previously indicted Prigozhin for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.
The Facebook statement accuses him of running a global disinformation media empire and of funding the Internet Research Agency, the St Petersburg troll factory that allegedly boosted Donald Trump.
“The people behind this activity used a combination of authentic accounts of Sudanese nationals, fake and compromised accounts (…) to comment, post and manage Pages posing as news organizations, as well as direct traffic to off-platform sites,” further said the statement.
