Khalid Abdelaziz and Malaika Tapper by NafisaEltahir

CAIRO/KHARTOUM – Facebook (NASDAQ) has announced that it shut down two major networks in Sudan targeting its users. This comes as military and civilian leaders clash over future arrangements for power sharing.

As Sudan struggles to recover from economic crises and an uncertain transition to democracy after 30 years of President Omar al-Bashir’s rule, the battle for public opinion is intensifying. He was ousted by a popular uprising that ended in 2019.

Facebook stated that it had taken down one network of unverifiable pages linked to paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The other was home to people hired by researchers as support for Bashir’s agitation for military coup.

In a demonstration that amounts to a coup, hundreds of demonstrators set up camps outside the presidential palace this week.

Facebook announced earlier this month that it shut down a network with nearly 1,000 accounts and pages, which had 1.1 million users. The company claimed the people behind the RSF were connected to them.

    The network boosted RSF official media feeds and other content related to the militia, led by powerful General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo who is deputy head of the ruling Sovereign Council and seen by some Sudanese as harbouring political ambitions.

    Representatives for the RSF and Dagalo did not respond to requests for comment. On the RSF-related downfall, no comments were made by government officials. Dagalo (also known as Hemedti) denies that he seeks personal empowerment. He has stated in the past, however, that he supports the democratic transition from civilian rule to civilian control.

    Facebook’s director of threat disruption, David Agranovich, told Reuters the network was identified by the platform’s own internal investigation.

    The company also said it removed a second network in June, after being tipped off by Valent Projects, an independent research firm hired by Sudan’s Information Ministry to look into activity linked to Bashir loyalists.

Facebook claimed that the network had over 100 pages and accounts, and more than 1.8million followers.

Reports have not been made about the Sudanese government’s attempts to defeat what it calls ex-regime loyaltyists trying to stop the transition.

    Loyalists were “working systematically to tarnish the image of the government”, the ministry said in a statement to Reuters, referring to social media posts in the network identified by Valent.

    In both networks, posts mimicked news media but offered skewed coverage of political events, according to Facebook and some independent researchers.

The 30% of Sudanese who have internet access, which is approximately 30 million people in total, rely heavily on social media to get news.

    The military-civilian partnership that replaced now-jailed Bashir in 2019 has been pushed to breaking point in recent weeks in the aftermath of what authorities called a failed coup attempt.

    Civilian officials have accused both Bashir loyalists and the military of stirring up unrest, including in the east of the country where tribal protesters have been blocking shipping at Port Sudan, exacerbating shortages stemming from a long-running economic crisis.

Military leaders refute the allegations and state that they will work for the democratic transition.

‘AGITATION’

Facebook claims it does not use technical signals to identify users, but Valent Projects researchers say that they analyze content and can see when different accounts share the same post simultaneously.

Valent Projects claimed that the network they identified was three times bigger than Facebook’s estimate, attracting more than six million people and growing.

    It was active as recently as this week, agitating for a military takeover as protesters gathered in central Khartoum, and last month in the aftermath of the coup attempt, said Valent Projects representatives.

Amil Khan, founder and director of the company said that it appeared like they wanted to create the illusion of support from grassroots for this move.

Agranovich, Facebook’s CEO, stated that the company is confident in its network shutdown and said other accounts Valent had not identified as being connected.

He assured that Facebook would monitor any potential revival.

Some network posts state that Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok doesn’t believe in Islam and charge his staff with being paid dollars. This accusation they denied.

Bashir is being supported by contributors to the release of Bashir. Bashir has been jailed for corruption and was wanted by International Criminal Court over allegations of Darfur war crimes. Bashir denied any charges.

According to Zouhir Al Shimale (head of research at Valent Projects), the network increased calls for civil disobedience.

    It also promoted protests ahead of the June 30 anniversary of the coup in which Bashir took power in 1989, according to the research firm.

    “People in Sudan thought there was just going to be a massive demonstration because they saw so much activity,” said Khan, citing a movement called Akhtona (“Get out of the way”) in local Arabic dialect. The event was attended by 3,500 people.

    Contacted by Reuters, three administrators of pages that Facebook left running denied being part of a network.

    “The ruling bodies today categorise any criticism of their oppressive policies and poor economic and political management as being related to the former regime,” said one of them, who declined to be identified.

    The information ministry said it took no legal measures against the pages or administrators. It stated that the Sudanese government was committed to protecting freedoms of expression.

Researchers at Stanford Internet Observatory (and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab) revealed that Facebook had previously made two targeted takedowns in December 2020, and May 2021. These took down accounts that were boosting Dagalo, as well as the RSF.

    In both networks Facebook said it found links to the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA), the officially defunct group accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.

    Anna Bogacheva, who the United States accused of carrying out IRA operations to interfere with elections and political processes, declined to answer questions about IRA when reached by phone.

    Agranovich said the most recently targeted network linked to the RSF did not reveal foreign links, and appeared part of a growing trend of domestic influence operations.