Tunisia: Facebook Closes Hundreds of Pages Linked to Influence Networks in Africa

According to Facebook, nearly 4 million people have come into contact with these pseudo-sites. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic

Text by: RFI Follow

The social network has announced that it has closed several hundred pages and groups present on its social network, accused of having been used for political propaganda to influence elections in different countries of Africa by publishing news. All were administered by a digital marketing company called URéputation belonging to the Franco-Tunisian businessman Lofti Bel Hadj, and this in violation of Facebook's charter on foreign interference.

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446 pages, 192 accounts and 96 Facebook groups closed. Over 200 Instagram accounts deleted. It is an investigation made public last weekend by an American research laboratory, Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) which put to the chip to the ear of Facebook . Its authors denounce the attributed practices of Tunisian society URéputation, namely: create in different countries so-called local information sites to disseminate, according to Facebook, content initially harmless and "  attractive  ", on "  tourism  " or relations with the diaspora, before changing their tone and embarking on political propaganda.

According to this survey, the Maghreb Info, Guinées Actu, L'Observateur togolais and Le Moronien websites would be particularly concerned. With favorable publications, pell-mell, still according to the authors of the investigation, to the Comorian president Azali Assoumani, to the former Ivorian president Henri Konan Bédié, in campaign for the elections of October, to the Togolese Faure Gnassingbé, re-elected in February, or even Tunisian Nabil Karoui, unsuccessful presidential candidate of 2019.

Foreign interference

The authors of the investigation say they have established a link between these sites and the employees of the company URéputation, in violation of the Facebook charter on foreign interference. They also underline the absence of  ideological "  continuity " that emerges from the content of these different sites and consider that the main motivation of the authors seems to have been "  financial gain  ".

According to the social network, almost 4 million Internet users in total would have dealt with these pseudo-sites.

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