Facebook Removes Fake Accounts Aimed at Discouraging Arab Voters

Facebook has removed dozens of fake accounts designed to reduce Joint List voter turnout in the upcoming election. The user profiles were identified in an investigation conducted by the nonprofit organization Democratic Bloc. The researchers, headed by Morshed Bebar, identified 32 accounts they suspected were fake, and after they reported them to Facebook, 30 were removed by the social media giant.

At the time of last September’s election, Facebook suspended for 24 hours a chatbot linked to far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official Facebook page because of its incitement against Arabs and the Left in Israel. The above image displays the chatbox belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu's Facebook page during the period of its suspension. It reads: "This page does not currently present any announcements."

At the time of last September’s election, Facebook suspended for 24 hours a chatbot linked to far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official Facebook page because of its incitement against Arabs and the Left in Israel. The above image displays the chatbox belonging to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook page during the period of its suspension. It reads: “This page does not currently present any announcements.” (Source: Screen capture of Netantyahu’s chatbox in Facebook)

The investigators monitored dozens of news pages, official pages of public figures, election campaign pages and other pages popular among the Arab-Palestinian national minority in Israel. The pages they identified “spread direct content that encouraged boycotting the election, or contributed to it indirectly through the use of planting despair or encouraging social polarization,” said Democratic Bloc. The group’s report follows a study conducted by the the same organization during the period before last September’s Knesset election, which led to Facebook removing 82 fake profiles.

The Democratic Bloc said they noticed certain patterns, such as names, actions and responses, which aroused their suspicions. Similar details caused them to suspect that there was an organized and computerized operation. One major focus of the fraudulent activity was on the Facebook page of Hadash MK Ayman Odeh, the chairman of the Joint List, where almost half of the fake accounts, 14, frequently posted responses.

The nature of the responses, the methods used for running the accounts, and the choice of names and pictures used reflected the high likelihood that these were fake accounts, but it is still not clear who was behind these attempts to suppress Arab voter turnout. Bebar said this was a part of “an organized and manipulative effort behind which lie anonymous interests that are maliciously using social media to influence the discussion.”

Ahead of last September’s election, Facebook suspended a chatbot operated by far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official page for 24 hours in reprisal for hate speech it published when it warned visitors of a possible “secular left-wing weak government that relies on Arabs who want to destroy us all — women, children and men.” On the day of the election for the 21st Knesset, April 9, 2019, Netanyahu’s Likud party actively sought to reduce the Arab vote by installing upwards of 1,200 cameras in Arab polling stations, ostensibly to deter these citizens from participating in the election. Towards the September 17 election for the 22nd Knesset, the Likud sought to repeat its spying but was prohibited from doing so.

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