Facebook Shuts Offical Ugandan Accounts Ahead of Vote Over Worries of Manipulation

Facebook Shuts official Ugandan Accounts Ahead of Vote Over Worries of Manipulation.

Facebook has shut a slew of accounts belonging to Ugandan government officials accused of seeking to manipulate public debate ahead of elections on Thursday, according to a statement from the social media giant.

The East African nation is holding presidential and parliamentary elections after a tense and bloody campaign, with incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, 76, facing a stiff challenge from the pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 38.

“This month, we removed a network of accounts and pages in Uganda that engaged in CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour) to target public debate ahead of the election,” Facebook’s head of communication for sub-Saharan Africa, Kezia Anim-Addo, said in an email.

“They used 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 were,” Anim-Addo said the network was linked to the government ministry of information and communications technology.

“Given the impending election in Uganda, we moved quickly to investigate and take down this network.”

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