https://www.myjoyonline.com/cyber-troopers-the-news-handles-spreading-disinformation-hate-speech-on-social-media/-------https://www.myjoyonline.com/cyber-troopers-the-news-handles-spreading-disinformation-hate-speech-on-social-media/

On October 16, 2023, an X (formerly Twitter) handle, @DailyInsightsGH, posted a flyer with a quote attributed to the former president and flagbearer of the leading opposition party, John Mahama, stating that President Akufo-Addo had not visited the victims of the Akosombo Dam spillage because of ethnic discrimination.

The post alleged that President Akufo-Addo had abandoned the victims because they were Ewes, indigenes of the Volta Region which is the stronghold of the leading opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The post further suggested that had the spillage happened in the Ashanti region, the stronghold of the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP), the President would have acted differently.

“Are Ewes not human beings too? Are Asantes more humans than ewes?” the quote attributed to John Mahama stated in part, whipping up tribal sentiments.

The post came on the back of the spillage of Akosombo dam, Ghana’s biggest hydroelectric power producer, that had displaced about 31,000 residents in the lower Volta region.

The flyer attributing the tribalistic comment to the leader of the opposition gained traction on X and was shared by many people including embattled Koku Anyidoho, former deputy secretary of the opposition NDC who has been banished from the party. Anyidoho’s post garnered 14k views and over 100 likes.

Fact-Check Ghana debunked the claim and the flagbearer of the NDC, John Mahama  issued a statement to deny the claim.

However, while investigating the claim, the team found not only one false claim by the handle but a plethora of posts stretching in between political disinformation and outright hate speech that may threaten the integrity, trust and peaceful administration of the 2024 general elections.

But as the team dug deeper into activities by Daily Insights GH (@dailyinsightsgh), whose bio information presents them as a news platform, the team found other handles that are engaged in similar activities of running disinformation campaigns against political opponents while masquerading as credible news outlets.

In recent times, social media has become one of the major outlets for digital campaigning and mobilizing support for political campaigns. Many political actors are now leveraging on social media to share their ideas. However, social media platforms have created an opportunity for widespread mis/disinformation aimed at shaping public opinion, especially by the works of cyber troopers.

A cyber trooper can be a person or account created purposely to disseminate political propaganda on the internet, particularly on social media platforms. Cyber troopers use disinformation and data-driven strategies as their major communications strategies. They use “so-called ‘fake news’ websites, doctored memes, images or videos, or other forms of deceptive content online.”

Cyber troopers also use data-driven strategies to profile and target specific segments of the population with political advertisements.

Approach

In this piece, Fact-Check Ghana went through the timelines of these accounts, observed, and verified the claims and content they shared and found some of them to be misleading, fake and false. These investigations started in October 2023.

In our investigations, we found that while many users had called some of these accounts out for the information they share, others also seem to believe the content as they like, repost and comment positively.

Cybertroopers masquerading as news platforms

  1. Daily Insights GH (X)

This account on X indicates that it is an “Online News Agency that seeks to shift the paradigm in the Ghanaian Media Space. Fearless, Credible, Factual”. @DailyInsightsGH has been in existence since March 2021 and had 502 posts as of April 2024.

  • News Daily 24 (X)

Fact-Check Ghana found this news account on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. However, the account was more active on X as it got more engagements from its posts than on Facebook.

@NewsDaily_24 had been on X since February 2021 and prides itself as “Your most reliable news source”, however, checks by Fact-Check Ghana show that much of the original content is far from content that can be relied upon.

This account was noted for sharing content without giving any context. In many instances, the quotes were not given any context and they either incited violence against an individual, a political party, an ethnic group or religion or misconstrued the words of an individual to make news. A lot of the claims on  @NewsDaily_24’s timeline do not have any piece of evidence to back them up. We also gathered that occasionally, News Daily 24 shares content from a website, 247newsgh.com.

  • Daily Guard Network (X)

This budding X account, @DailyGuardGH was created in October 2023. Its logo, name and colours are similar to that of the Daily Guide Network (@DailyGuideGH) which is known to be the producer of the Daily Guide newspaper and DGN TV.

However, the new account @DailyGuardGH imitates the original account of  @DailyGuideGH even with its bio- “Ghana's favourite news outlet. Follow for more breaking news, in-depth analysis and more.” It is the same as what is on Daily Guide’s X profile. 

Though there is a link to a website on its profile. As of September 06, 2024, that link leads to a page that reads “This site can’t be reached. Check if there is a typo in www.dailyguardnetwork.com.” A search on Google to find its website yielded no significant results. There was no website where this supposed media outlet published its stories. However, it has already shared 87 posts as of June 03, 2024, with 96 followers.

4. Multi_nation_media (Instagram)

An Instagram account, multi_nation_media, a digital content creator with about 40.8K followers was ostensibly publicising Kennedy Agyapong and his presidential ambition.

A lot of the posts by this user are to portray Kennedy Agyapong as the best person to lead the New Patriotic Party. However, in pushing this agenda, the account also shared posts that demeaned other tribes and religions.  Find some of such posts here and here.

Other posts (here and here) were insults and threats targeting some members of the NPP.

  1. News Afrika.com (Facebook)

While the Instagram account (multi_nation_media) seems to be pushing the “Ken” Agenda, this account on Facebook, News Afrika.com appears to be pushing the agenda of Alan Kyerematen as the ideal presidential candidate for the 2024 elections.

  • The New Tescon Informant

This account is both on X and Facebook. As the name suggests, it is affiliated to the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Its X bio reads “This is the Official Twitter Account of The New TESCON Informant. A Pro-NPP E-Newsletter”.

Created in February 2021, the X account is branded as a news company that focuses on Fact Check, politics and current affairs. However, Fact-Check Ghana’s analysis of the content on the page shows that the content on the page is skewed towards Ghana’s Vice President, Mahamadu Bawumia who is aspiring to become the country’s President, albeit it occasionally peppers its tweets with happenings in other African States. As of June 03, 2024, the page had 180 posts with 4,654 followers.

The account also follows four African states presidents including Ghana’s president Nana Akufo Addo, and Vice President Mahamadu Bawumia.

Political Affiliation

Although these account shared information as news outlets, however, an analysis of their content showed that some of the accounts were politically inclined. They were largely either in favour of the ruling New Parotitic Party (NPP) or the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Despite this wide political spectrum, some pages were also outright political pages like the New Tescon Informant which suggests that the user of the page is or once a member of Tescon, the campus youth wing of the NPP.

For instance, Multi_nation_media shared content that sought to put Vice President Bawumia and his wife in a bad light. Many of the posts targeted at them with insults and religious bigoted comments that undermined their personalities.

Spreading disinformation almost daily

@AfricaFocus_ on May 28 published a flyer it tagged as breaking. The message on the flyer read “Martin Amidu accuses John Mahama of being the father of all corruption in his new revelation in relation to the airbus scandal.”

Even when a user commented asking Africa Focus to post its evidence either a video or audio, there was no response. Fact-Check Ghana did not find any evidence of Martin Amidu saying that. In fact, Martin Amidu, the former Special Prosecutor had in 202o describe President Akufo-Addo as the mother serpent of corruption. This was widely published and talked about in several media outlets. It is thus surprising that if Mr. Amidu made a similar about a former President, it would go unreported by the media.

@AfricaFocus_ has also published some polls suggesting who is likely to win Ghana’s 2024. It is not clear how this new media outlet conducted the polls and when it does but it is constantly posting polls on regional basis.  It said it has deployed people to some regions to find out who is likely to win the elections.

Beyond the polls, @AfricaFocus constantly posts captions with quotes being attributed to the news makers in the pictures without any context. Such posts are often misleading as they do not provide more information and context to help people ascertain the veracity of the news item.

On October 12, 2023, @NewsDaily_24 tweeted “I apologise for insulting President Mahama before the 2016 election; he is a respected leader, and I ask him to forgive me, it won’t happen again” -2nd Lady Samira Bawumia apologises to Mahama. That was false


The same handle also shared a post on October 10, 2023 “They are NPP members, but there’s no need in prosecuting them– Ahiagbah confirms the identity of hooligans who invaded UTV”, this was also false. Our checks show that although Mr Ahiagbah confirmed the identity of the invaders in an interview on Peace FM’s morning show, he did not say “But there’s no need to prosecute them”.

What Mr Ahiagbah said was that the action by the thugs was not endorsed by the NPP and that the party was willing to assist the police in further investigations. Further checks show that the news reports by other media outlets on the comments by Ahiagbah in that interview never captured the supposed comment [“but there’s no need in prosecuting them”] because such a comment is newsworthy and would have featured prominently in the news and political conversations.

@NewsDaily_24 also shared a post that read “Bawumia advised the EMT not to listen to my economic advice, Ghana would not have gone to the IMF for a bailout if the government had listened to my advice” —Alan Kyeremanteng.  Although the account shared a link to a story after concerns were raised by users, the story was completely different from the tweet it shared. Many users questioned the authenticity of the information (here, here, and here).

That was not the only instance @NewsDaily_24 shared false content, the supposed news platform also claimed Vice President Mahamadu Bawumia said “To be honest, I support the Bet Tax; my religion forbids betting in Quran 5:90, and I believe the Bet Tax will discourage youth from gambling.” Our checks show that the Vice President did not make the claim shared by @NewsDaily_24.

Fact-Check Ghana also found some stories that were false on @NewsDaily_24 (Samira's apology, claim that Sammy Awuku NPP wants to return to GTV because their deal with UTV expirees this year, Bawumia and 10% betting tax, Richard Ahiagbah and NPP thugs).

@DailyInsightsGH also shared some content that was outright disinformation. Our checks show that a lot of its posts, for instance, were targeted at the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). For instance, it misled the public by claiming that Former President Mahama advocated for a ban on the 10% tax on betting. Here is the post. Beyond this post, this page spreads disinformation almost daily.

Again, a flyer that was captioned “News: Run-off looms in 2024 Presidential election according to the Communications Officer of the NDC, Lawyer Sammy Gyamfi” was posted by the handle. Find the post here. This claim was also found to be misleading as that was not what Sammy Gyamfi said.

In February, 2024, The New TESCON Informant shared an artwork with Fact-Check Ghana’s logo, imitating the design font and style to share content purportedly published by Fact-Check Ghana when Fact-Check had not published any report.

Inciting violence

Some tweets by @NewsDaily_24 can incite violence or even tarnish the image of an individual, institution religious body or ethnic group. For instance, in this tweet, “Since I don't have your money, you should go to Menzgold instead of asking me for it”—Certified Fraudster and Businessman, Nana Appiah Mensah. A product of Adisadel College.” One wonders why Adisadel College had to be mentioned in the post and why @NewsDaily_24 describes him as a certified fraudster.

Religious bigotry

Daily Insight also shared a flyer that was captioned: “A Muslim leading the country will be a great threat to our national security”-NDC Youth Organiser. However, the post doesn’t mention which NDC Youth Organiser in particular said this, when and where the claim was made. This post generated a lot of comments and reposting with some users expressing their displeasure about it (here, here, and here).

Tribalistic

The Daily Insights shared posts that were ethnic-centered and tribal slurs. For instance, in one of its posts in July 2023, they falsely claimed that former president John Mahama said his “government will prioritize projects in the North over the South, particularly the Ashanti Region.”

Again, it posted another flyer with a quote attributed to Fmr. President John Mahama, “Äkufo Addo does not want to come to the Volta Region to inspect the havoc of the spillage. If it were the Ashanti Region, he would have rushed there. Are Ewes not human beings too? Are Asantes more human beings than Ewes?”

This is an ethnocentric claim targeted at inciting the two tribes against each other. Fact-Check Ghana found this claim to be false. The former president also debunked the claim.

In April 2024, @DailyGuardGH shared a post, "The Ashanti Region is important than any other region in the country"-Hon Frema Opare (Chief of Staff).

The Chief of Staff was speaking at the NPP Campaign team inauguration in the Ashanti Region where she mentioned the importance of the party getting rousing support in their strongholds

This is what the Chief of Staff said exactly, “The Ashanti Region is the most important region, and therefore everything that they are doing, we have to support them and make the party firm in the Ashanti Region.”

However, Daily Guard Network did not add the context and full quote of the Chief of Staff. This twisted the words of the government official and incited the public against her.

As Ghana prepares to go to the polls in December, 2024, more of the disinformation handles may become prevalent.

Questionable Polls

Some of the accounts like Africa Focus was noted for

How to spot disinformation handles

  1. Many of such news handles on social media are created to push an agenda of an individual, a political party or a group of people. They do not usually have websites where they publish their stories.

  2. They do not give any context or additional information about a claim they attribute to someone. And because they usually have no website to visit and read the full story, it is always quotes and pictures they share.

  3. They don’t always mention the names of people who they say make a claim. You would often read, “an NPP businessman,” or “an embattled communications team member.”

  4. Check out the accounts the suspected fake or disinformation handle is following, its followers and the profile of the account. In some instances, fake accounts especially bots have no profile, fewer followers, and unusual online behaviour such as sharing similar content across several platforms or underneath several posts.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.