Facebook has banned accounts linked to Ugandan government officials ahead of the country’s general elections scheduled for Thursday 14 January 2020, and cited Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB), including posting false information and duplicating posts.
The run up to the election has lit up social media, with Ugandans expressing their frustration over alleged rights abuses at the hands of Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986.
Facebook believes that some accounts which the social network has linked to the Information Ministry are being used to spread fake news and manipulate public discourse ahead of the election.
“This month, we removed a network of accounts & pages in Uganda that engaged in Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour to target public debate ahead of polls,” Facebook clarified in a statement.
“Given the impending election in Uganda, we moved quickly to investigate and take down this network.”
The social network added that the suspended accounts operated through “fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular” than they are.
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