Facebook removes fake accounts targeting Africa

Facebook says it has removed hundreds of social media accounts targeted at countries in Africa. It also said it has banned an Israeli firm for ‘‘co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour’‘.

The global social media giant said, the 265 social media accounts removed were focused on Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia.

Other regions included Latin America and South East Asia.

In a blog post, the company said ‘’ the people behind this network used fake accounts to run pages, disseminate their content and artificially increase engagements’‘.

Facebook’s head of Cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher said these networks also ‘‘represented themselves as locals, including news organizations and published allegedly leaked information about politicians’‘.

It said the people behind these accounts spent about $812,000 for ads between December 2012 and April 2019.

Five of the six African countries targeted have had elections since 2016.

Tunisia is expected to hold its national polls later this year.