CNN investigation finds troll farms in Ghana and Nigeria exploited US racial tensions and have ties to Russia's IRA; Facebook and Twitter have removed accounts
Accra, Ghana (CNN)The Russian trolls are back — and once again trying to poison the political atmosphere in the United States ahead of this year's elections.
It also lands mid-pattern on the platforms' side: Facebook had already banned Iranian and Russian networks running inauthentic accounts targeting US and Latin American users in late 2019, and months after this report it removed Pages pushing a fake left-wing outlet after an FBI tip about an IRA-linked operation. The throughline is that takedowns are reactive, arriving after campaigns have run.
First-order effects
Facebook and Twitter have already removed the accounts tied to these Ghana- and Nigeria-based farms, so the immediate effect is content deletion — but only after the racial-tension messaging had time to circulate among US audiences.
CNN's reporting puts the IRA connection on the record, raising scrutiny of West African operations that may have been treated as locally focused until now.
Second-order effects
Platforms face pressure to shift detection from account-level signals (which the 2016 identity-laundering tactics defeated) toward network-level patterns spanning multiple countries, since outsourcing to Ghana and Nigeria exploits exactly the geographic assumptions built into enforcement.
Each confirmed IRA-linked takedown strengthens the case for intelligence-community tips like the FBI lead behind Facebook's later fake-outlet removal, making law-enforcement referral a routine part of platform moderation.
Third-order effects
If influence operations keep franchising through third countries, attribution shifts from 'Russian bots' to distributed proxy networks, forcing regulators and platforms to police transnational coordination rather than single-source interference — with real risk of overbroad takedowns hitting legitimate regional speech.
The recurring pattern — 2016 election infrastructure, 2018 health-debate amplification, 2020 election-season racial messaging — points toward influence ops becoming a permanent standing industry that platforms and agencies counter continuously rather than per-election.
The trend: State-linked influence operations are decentralizing through local troll farms in third countries, outpacing platform takedowns that arrive only after campaigns have run.
BREAKING: coordinated takedown across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. -Operation based in Ghana; -Targeted the African-American community; -Still in audience-building stage; -No systematic reference to 2020 election; -Linked to associates of the Russian IRA troll farm. https://t…
An interesting new Russian operation using African intermediaries to target African-American communities in the United States. Compatible with our analysis of Prigozhin-linked groups pushing disinformation inside of Africa from last October. https://twitter.com/...
Together with @Facebook, @CNN, and our partners in law enforcement and the research community, we've removed 71 accounts originating in Ghana and Nigeria which we can associate with Russia. Comprehensive data about their activity is now in our information operations archive. http…
“More than 200 accounts were created by the Ghanaian trolls — the vast majority in the second half of 2019 — and they reached hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people worldwide.” https://twitter.com/...
Russian Trolls using Ghana and Nigeria to target Black Americans have the potential to significantly harm & negatively impact Pan-Africanist networks, movements and productive relationships between Africa & the Diasporas in the U.S. They must be stopped..@AfricanaCarr, thoughts? …
Glad to see Facebook and Twitter taking these accounts down. Interesting to see Russia using the racism issue - they must assess that's one of the biggest stress points in the US. Russia will certainly reconstitute these efforts elsewhere. https://twitter.com/...
3/ Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have now taken down all 274 accounts associated with this effort. In total, they were followed by more than a quarter of a million people.
@clarissaward The good: FB and Twitter have made it harder and more expensive for Russia to run influence ops. They can't just “buy ads in rubles” anymore. Russia has to sink more money, time, and resources into spreading disinformation among Americans now.
This story broke today. Russia is targeting African Americans again & posing as activist groups - but this time they're laundering their election interference by paying & working through Ghanaian and Nigerian trolls. Facebook exposed & took down one ring. https://www.cnn.com/...
I've been seeing followers from Ghana in ALL of the MAGA troll accounts I investigate. Each and every time I'm attacked or I see someone getting attacked.... I look at the troll's followers. Inevitably, I find massive bot accounts and Ghana accounts. EVERY. TIME. https://twitter.…
Just as I have suspected for weeks, many of those ‘mean tweets’ that campaigns were talking about online are not real people but paid trolls. https://twitter.com/...
We peer-reviewed some of the independent research findings. The details of this case are stranger than fiction, but the bottom line is not surprising: Russia's efforts and influence operations to use our own divides against Americans are real, evolving, and ongoing. https://twitt…
Excellent reporting by @clarissaward — this type of on-the-ground sleuthing can be critical to understanding and exposing these networks. It was a privilege to work with her to take down this operation! https://twitter.com/...
1/ EXCLUSIVE: Russian trolls have outsourced their disinformation campaigns to Ghana and Nigeria, focusing on racial issues in the US ahead of the presidential election https://edition.cnn.com/...
I've said for years now that it would be foolish to believe there was only the one well-publicized IRA facility in St. Petersburg. This new reporting is a reminder of the continuing threat we face from Russia and its continuing efforts to divide and manipulate us on social media.…
I know there's a lot going on, but this is an amazing story from @clarissaward @TimListerCNN @sebshukla @katie_polglase and @GianlucaMezzo https://twitter.com/...
Meanwhile.... (If Facebook and the Trump administration don't take steps, Russia is going to mess again with a US election this way.) https://edition.cnn.com/...
🚨Huge new investigation from @clarissaward and team: The same Russian troll farm that targeted 2016 US election has outsourced to Africa. CNN tracked down the man running it in Ghana. http://www.cnn.com/...
But more of the content was positive and affirming than negative. This was an operation trying to build an audience, especially in African-American communities. It was looking for virality through the feelgood factor, not hate. With the IRA in 2016, the hate came later. https://t…
Fb pulls down 49 Facebook accounts, 69 Pages and 85 Instagram accounts for engaging in foreign interference. “They frequently posted about US news and attempted to grow their audience by focusing on topics like black history, black excellence and fashion...” https://twitter.com/.…
@clarissaward @CNN Facebook's post-2018 political ad policies blocked this group from running ads, but the overall takedown highlights the potential risk of Russian groups manipulating legit US activists to run ads on their behalf. https://about.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/...
New network found with links to RU IRA via Ghana and Nigeria targeting US Facebook and Instagram users on race, police violence, LGBT issues, etc. ... again. https://twitter.com/...
Russian active measures targeting black Americans in 2016: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/ ... today are underreported, & may have played a role in depressing turnout. Is this is what disinformation looks like, @BrendanCarrFCC? Or would you call it something else? https://tw…