French and Russian Trolls Wrestle For Influence In Africa, Facebook Says (reuters.com) 34
Rival French and Russian disinformation campaigns have sought to deceive and influence Internet users in the Central African Republic ahead of an election later this month, Facebook said on Tuesday. Reuters reports: Facebook said it was the first time it had seen foreign influence operations directly engage on its platforms, with fake accounts denouncing each other as "fake news." The company said it had suspended three networks totaling almost 500 accounts and pages for so-called "coordinated inauthentic behavior." One network was linked to "individuals associated with French military," it said, while the other two had connections to "individuals associated with past activity by the Russian Internet Research Agency" as well as Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin.
France and Russia are both keen to assert influence in Africa. Paris has ties with many French-speaking African countries, which it sees as vital to preventing the spread of violent Islamisation, and Moscow is jockeying for position in a lucrative market. Facebook said the two campaigns largely focused on the Central African Republic (CAR), which votes on Dec. 27, but also targeted users in 13 other African countries including Algeria, Cameroon, Libya and Sudan. Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at social media analytics firm Graphika, said both campaigns used fake accounts to pose as local people, sometimes sharing doctored photos. [...] But neither side built a significant audience in CAR, he added. "They looked like two troll teams arm wrestling, with nobody else really paying attention."
France and Russia are both keen to assert influence in Africa. Paris has ties with many French-speaking African countries, which it sees as vital to preventing the spread of violent Islamisation, and Moscow is jockeying for position in a lucrative market. Facebook said the two campaigns largely focused on the Central African Republic (CAR), which votes on Dec. 27, but also targeted users in 13 other African countries including Algeria, Cameroon, Libya and Sudan. Ben Nimmo, head of investigations at social media analytics firm Graphika, said both campaigns used fake accounts to pose as local people, sometimes sharing doctored photos. [...] But neither side built a significant audience in CAR, he added. "They looked like two troll teams arm wrestling, with nobody else really paying attention."
I'm creating TrollBook because there is such (Score:3)
a demand for trolls. People seem to like trolls; they get so many hits that everybody complains about their prominence.
TrollBook will have a bigass disclaimer, "objects in mirror may likely be fake" so that nobody can claim we are spreading misleading information because it's already been pre-stamped as misleading. My competition is FakeBook, RiggedBook, and DeepBook.
Re: I'm creating TrollBook because there is such (Score:2)
Oh yea? Well Im gonna create OverdueLibraryBook and claim this information had been around for decades!
How Europe messed up Africa (Score:2)
Africa was randomly carved up by European invaders in an imperial territorial race with each other. Thus, the "countries" of African are a rather random mix of cultures and languages, making them difficult to govern.
To put that in perspective, it's like US red counties versus blue counties, but multiplied by a few more colors and languages.
Re: I'm creating TrollBook because there is such (Score:1)
Face it, everything Africa does turns out hilarious.
Such as producing your ancestors a mere one or two thousand generations back...
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget your own porn site called Fuckbook.
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Just to get a clearer picture , do you have an opinion on Facebook's attitude towards rightwing commenters inside the US?
I believe facebook like anyone will treat different targets with an appropriate policy.
- internal policies of foreign countries
- extension of US foreign policy(left or right does not matter much) : Russia, Eastern Europe, South America, Iran, China
- internal US policy.
In the US the democratic side dominates in press and social media. So how hard is Facebook on rightwing groups?
Also do you
Hidden agenda (Score:3)
Paris has ties with many French-speaking African countries, which it sees as vital to preventing the spread of violent Islamisation
There is also a long history of African dictators helped by France to remain in place, and french politicians getting money from them
Re: Hidden agenda (Score:2)
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Paris has ties with many French-speaking African countries, which it sees as vital to preventing the spread of violent Islamisation
There is also a long history of African dictators helped by France to remain in place, and french politicians getting money from them
Sadly, like any reputable fill-in-the-blank game, you can substitute many nationalities for values of African, France, and French with the statement still remaining quite accurate.
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Well thats the thing see. The Jihadi groups have a tendency to organize along the lines of throwing out dictators. Its not so much that they are anti-dictator, they would just prefer their own dictator. A Caliph rather than a king, so to speak.
Unfortunately for the people Africa, it would seem that the west, the east, and everyone else still wants a slice of that resource rich pie and thus prefer their own dictators. Its almost as if we're still fighting world war 1 over there.
Re: Oh noes! More competition for the CIA & MI (Score:2)
I think the CIA and MI6 would be a little more clever. There's a reason that France and Russia are both ex-world powers.
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I think the CIA and MI6 would be a little more clever. There's a reason that France and Russia are both ex-world powers.
Russia is pretty good, though... In 2016, Russia got two major things they wanted: A divided Europe by supporting the Brexit campaign, and Trump as a president who would both weaken and polarize the US, and weaken the bonds with their allies.
And the Chinese(CCP) does it the (Score:2, Interesting)
oooo The Russians and French! I am shaking in my boots.
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Not much!
SpaceX vs Venezuela (Score:2)
> What is the difference between Billionaires and Communist?
A billionaire makes SpaceX and Tesla.
Communism makes Venezuela and Cuba.
Ever noticed that some countries have walls to keep people in, while other countries build walls to keep the flood of people put, to funnel all of the people wanting in through the legal process.
Ever wondered why that is, why Communist countries need barbed wire and machine guns to keep the people from fleeing - to capitalist countries?
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If you had only one megacorporation that it is also the government, it wouldn't be that much different from communism.
Luckly, competition is good enough to at very least slow that down significantly.
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> If you had only one megacorporation that it is also the government, it wouldn't be that much different from communism.
True, I suppose that would be *exactly* communism, in fact.
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Yep. And it's what the megacorps want to do if not impeded.
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So you are saying that South Africa back in the day used to be communist, even though it was so anticommunist it started a war with its neighbour over it?
And what exactly is so bad about Cuba compared with other countries in the proximity, like, say, Haiti? Considering that Cuba has been under an embargo for decades, they seem to do quite well.
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The best way to corrupt someone is to give him an ideology that explains everything easily. Any system that is flexible enough to explain everything is flexible enough to justify anything.
Communism is not unique in that regards, it is unique only in that it enjoyed a historical opportunity in the 20th Century that no all-encompassing secular ideology has ever had.
Re: SpaceX vs Venezuela (Score:2)
The fact that you believe there are communist states on this planet makes you too clueless to even listen to.
How insaely gullible are you? You think just because somebody says he is something, that he actually is that? Despite all evidence showing he isn't? ;)
(So you voted for Trump too?
I'm surprised (Score:1)
That the Communist country that has been trying to influence most in Africa, isn't a suspect. Could it be doing it with Russia by proxy?
You have to wonder (Score:3)
Inquiring minds have to wonder if Facebook would feel as free to call out the intelligence apparatus ( NSA, CIA, Military ) of the US government if it was involved in a disinformation campaign, or if it would be swept under the rug.
Re: You have to wonder (Score:2)
What do you mean, "if"?
FacebookGames (Score:3)
Facebook said it was the first time ... (Score:2)
Funny how you have to be looking before you will see what you are looking for.
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Indeed. And now the FaceBook doesn’t know how fast they have to react...
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They'll be fine (Score:2)
They'll be just fine, as long as they don't shake hands afterwards. [dailywire.com]