Facebook Inc has taken down 735 accounts and groups engaged in a “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” linked to a controversial militia in Sudan, the company said on Monday.
In September 2021, Facebook removed 116 Pages, 666 Facebook accounts, 69 Groups and 92 Instagram accounts targeting the Sudanese audiences.
“We found this activity as part of our internal investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the region and linked it to the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group operated by the Sudanese Government,” further stated the popular social media platform.
Two years after the collapse of the former regime, RSF continue to be rejected in the country due to its involvement in human rights violations during the counterinsurgency campaign in Darfur and the killing of pro-democracy activists in Khartoum on 3 June 2019.
The SRF Commander and deputy head of the Transitional Sovereign Council Mohamed Hamdan Daglo ’’Hemetti” also seeks to maintain his paramilitary forces in clear violations of the Constitutional Document which provides to merge it in the national army.
Besides the public relations campaigns, it has been purported that he funds more than a newspaper in Khartoum and organising charity activities.
Last week, he gave 100,000 Sudanese pounds to every teacher that took part in the control and correction of the Sudanese Secondary Certificate.
Hemetti has a holding company working in gold and mining, transport, import and export and roads construction.
Last July, Facebook removed 53 accounts used to spread fake news hostile to the transitional government in Sudan.
Source: Sudan Tribune