Elections in Nicaragua: meet some of the qualified candidates 4:14
(Reuters) -
Facebook said on Monday that last month it removed a trolling farm with more than 1,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts that it reported was run by the Nicaraguan government and the country's ruling Sandinista Front party. National Liberation.
The social media company said the trolling farm - a coordinated effort to manipulate public discourse using fake accounts - was aimed at amplifying pro-government and anti-opposition content.
Facebook said the operation had been active on its platforms since 2018 and was operated mainly by personnel from TELCOR, Nicaragua's telecommunications watchdog, working from the postal service's headquarters in the capital, Managua.
The Supreme Court of Justice, which has been an ally of President Daniel Ortega, and the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute also handled smaller groups of fake accounts, Facebook added.
The office of Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo, a spokesperson for Ortega and his government, and the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
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"This was one of the most intergovernmental trolling operations that we have thwarted to date, with multiple state entities participating in this activity at once," the Facebook researchers said in their report.
Facebook removes fake accounts and likes from its site
Trolls: "A particularly worrying trend"
Facebook said this year it had pulled other government-linked networks in Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Thailand and Azerbaijan for violating its rules against so-called coordinated inauthentic behavior, calling this "a particularly worrying trend."
The company, which last week announced that it would go public as Meta Platforms Inc. on December 1, has come under scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators for potential damage linked to its platform, especially after former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen leak internal documents.
Nicaragua will hold its presidential elections this Sunday, which Washington has denounced as a farce organized by an increasingly authoritarian Ortega.
Facebook said the operation ran a network of blogs, websites and social media assets on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Blogspot and Telegram.
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The activity began in April 2018, when student-led protests against the Government broke out.
Facebook said it removed 937 Facebook accounts, 140 pages, 24 groups and 363 Instagram accounts as part of the Nicaraguan network.
Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York. Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel Edited in Spanish by Javier López de Lérida
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