Francis Muli
Facebook has deleted a number of books purporting to be associated with Justice for George Floyd but exhibiting inauthentic behavior.
Suspicious groups have in the last one week switched their focus on the US protests while calling for justice for George Floyd who died in the hands of the police.
Some accounts, which were posting misleading images, were traced back to Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Others previously focused on 5G, the COVID-19 Pandemic and support for the US president, Donald Trump.
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A Facebook spokesperson said they had removed a vast majority of the pages for violation of their policies.
Although there has been a surge in membership for Facebook groups supporting the Black Lives Movement, it is unclear what motives some of the page/group admins have.
In some cases, others could be exploiting the popular movement to gain followers or stoke tensions. Some of the pages that are based outside the US had posted inflammatory images and videos before the intervention by Facebook.
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A group named Justice for George Floyd, was set up in March and originally focused on the COVID-19 pandemic before switching to ‘US breaking News’ featuring stories sympathetic to President Trump, before turning to Black Lives Matter. The group had about 2,000 members.
Two of its administrators were identified to be in Vietnam and had repeatedly shared images which were critical of the protestors, including images of battered police vehicles that predate the on-going protests.
A different group, named Justice for George Floyd & Latest Updates, was run by an admin in Bangladesh.
The administrator’s profile photos were lifted from different websites and even included photos of animals and celebrities.
The page was littered in highly emotive language supporting both the police and the protestors.
Other groups include one originally called paranormal activity and later switched up to The death of George Floyd-Minneapolis; a group originally called Join Donald Trump’s 2020 Winning Team changed to Justice for George Floyd & Stopping the Riots
This is not the first time that the Black Lives Matter Groups have been hijacked.
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