Facebook Removes 3 More Russian Networks for Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior

They were targeting several countries in Africa

Facebook removed three more networks of accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior, all of which originated in Russia.

Head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said in a Newsroom post that the three networks were connected to entities associated with Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who was previously indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The first of the three groups consisted of 35 accounts, 53 pages, seven groups and five Instagram accounts, with its activity focused on Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon.

They used a combination of fake accounts and authentic accounts of local nationals in Madagascar and Mozambique to manage pages and groups and post content, typically regarding global and local political news on topics including Russian policies in Africa, elections in Madagascar and Mozambique, election monitoring by a local non-governmental organization and criticism of French and U.S.

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