Today jan 28, several groups have called to protest. While everybody can have their own opinions, we looked at two well-known cyber guérilla tactics: micro targeting and go offline. Is #BurkinaFaso under Russian cyber influence ? Fasten your seat belt and go ..(1/n)
A cartoon emerged on social media end of Dec 2022 featuring a #WagnerGroup mercenary with a hammer against a rat, symbolising France. It was posted by this media page Burkina Kibaya (2/n) fb.watch/ikD5uoJ-Uj/
This media and news page has paid @Meta for ads campaigns targeting geographically people living in #BurkinaFaso . This tactic is called micro targeting and helps target for very cheap the right audience (less than 100usd per ad) (3/n)
The page has launched 4 campaigns for #BurkinaFaso thanks to @Meta services
But there are other pages doing the same things: buying ads space and targeting #BurkinaFaso (poke @Meta )
This tactic has been used by #Prigozhin Internet Research Agency for the US Elections
They also use this tactic in #CAR with this story about Dimitri Sytyi
This news and media page “Info du Burkina” is of special interest: 92k de likes et 118k de followers. Son intro: "Follow the political and security news of Burkina and Africa on our platform”
Not only does the page organise ad campaign with #BurkinaFaso and demographic outreach
But it does also create events to call for protest
Does it ring a bell to you? The same happened in the wake of the US elections in Capitol Hills. This tactic is called “go offline”: how an info ops can trigger an effect in the real world like demonstrations nytimes.com/2021/01/06/us/…
Other tactics can be spotted online: multiple accounts from #Mali calling for protest and copy pasting the same content (wouldn’t it be weird to have Italians calling for protests in Germany ?!)
This page, La Voix du Peuple, is interesting because it calls for protest and manage a big number of groups where the call can be disseminated and reach much more people
Finally another example of a page created recently, calling for protest and paying for advertisements as well (/end)
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.