French, Russian trolls meddle in CAR vote: Facebook
DISINFORMATION: The company said that it suspended three networks totaling almost 500 accounts and pages for so-called ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’
Reuters, LONDON
Rival French and Russian disinformation campaigns have sought to deceive Internet users and unmask each other in the Central African Republic (CAR) ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections on Dec. 27, Facebook said on Tuesday.
Facebook said that it was the first time that it had seen such a direct battle of trolls by competing foreign states on its platforms, with the rivals’ fake accounts denouncing each other as “fake news.”
The company said that it had suspended three networks totaling almost 500 accounts and pages for so-called “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”