Kampala (AFP)
Facebook has in recent days closed the accounts of several Ugandan government officials accused of interfering in public debate ahead of Thursday's presidential election, the US giant said in an email to AFP on Monday.
Uganda is organizing a presidential election on Thursday in a tense climate, notably pitting outgoing President Yoweri Museveni, 76, including 35 at the head of the country, to a song star turned MP, Bobi Wine, 38.
“This month (January), we shut down a network of accounts and pages in Uganda that were involved in + coordinated inauthentic behavior + aimed at influencing public debate ahead of the election,” he told the 'AFP Facebook's communications manager for sub-Saharan Africa Kezzia Anim-Addo.
"They were using fake or duplicate accounts to manage pages, commenting on other people's content, posing as users, sharing content in groups to make it appear more popular than it was," said the manager.
“Given the impending election in Uganda, we reacted quickly to investigate and bring down this network. We found that this network was linked to the Citizens' Interaction with Government Group of the Ministry of Information ( ...) in Uganda, "Facebook said.
President Yoweri Museveni's communications advisor, Don Wanyama, who is one of the personalities whose Facebook and Instagram accounts have been closed, in turn accused the American giant of wanting to influence the course of the presidential election.
"Shame on foreign forces who think they can install a puppet regime in Uganda by disabling the online accounts of supporters of the NRM," the ruling party, he responded.
"You will not get rid of President Museveni".
According to the National Resistance Movement (NRM), several dozen accounts have suffered the same fate, belonging to various figures such as a senior official of the Ministry of Information and Communications, a prominent Internet user close to the NRM or a known doctor.
The president's accounts were not affected by Facebook's intervention.
President Museveni and his campaign team have regularly accused "foreign forces" - without specifying which ones - of supporting Bobi Wine's campaign to achieve regime change in this landlocked East African country.
© 2021 AFP