Facebook deleted dozens of fake accounts and pages managed by a Washington DC-based strategic communications firm CLS Strategies over a report of inauthentic behaviour.
Bolivia’s interim presidency, on Thursday, said it had hired a Washington-based lobbying firm CLS Strategies. The company is under investigation from Facebook for launching fake news to skew democratic debate.
Bolivia’s interim government said it hired the PR firm to shore up its international support. The current government gained power after longtime leftist leader Eva Morales resigned late last year after an international audit of elections found that he won presidential elections by means of fraud.
Twenty six Facebook accounts, 46 Facebook pages and 36 Instagram accounts managed by the company were deleted by Facebook citing that it violated the social media platform’s policy against foreign interference or inauthentic behaviour on behalf of a foreign entity. Facebook said the company amplified content it created including mocked-up local news, civic organizations and political supporters’ sites.
The company, that purchased $3.6 million worth of Facebook ads, had 509,000 followers in one of its Facebook pages.
The CLS network was focused on internal events in Venezuela, Mexico and Bolivia.
The government said it was the company’s mandate to “carry out lobbying in search of backing for Bolivian democracy after fraudulent elections and in support of the holding of new presidential polls.”
Bolivian officials were introduced to employees from its US executive branch and legislature, but the government had not asked for the company for any such service or activity.
Facebook, on Tuesday, said that fake accounts linked to CLS that posted content in support of Bolivia’s interim president Jeanine Anez and political opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were deleted.
A page managed by the company had also posted negative content about the party of Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador.
Facebook found information about the PR firm’s activities when it conducted an investigation into “suspected coordinated inauthentic behaviour in the region” and found pages belonging to independent news entities, civic organizations and political fan groups and several pages that were made to look like pages of local citizens or of political parties. Facebook also said it dismantled a Russian influence operation posing as an independent news outlet to target left-wing voters in the US and the UK.
