Facebook has closed some accounts allegedly set up by an Israeli firm, Archimedes which were used to dent the image of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and boost the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to the Associated Press, the report by United States’ Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which analyses misinformation online said some sample posts removed from Facebook appeared to praise President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress and smear his leading opponent.

Many of the pages and accounts were discovered to be linked to a Tel Aviv-based political consulting and lobbying firm named Archimedes.

Facebook therefore banned Archimedes from its platform for its ‘coordinated and deceptive behaviour’ and conducted a sweeping take down of dozens of accounts and hundreds of pages primarily aimed at disrupting elections in African countries.

According to Facebook’s estimates, the misleading accounts had reached some 5,000 followers and 2.8 million users, one of which was filled with viral misinformation attacking Atiku.

“The page’s banner image showed Abubakar as Darth Vader, the Star Wars villain holding up a sign reading, ‘Make Nigeria Worse Again’.

“Another page with almost identical visuals, although significantly excluding the Darth Vader mask purported to support Atiku, with the slogan ‘Team Atiku for President’,” the report said.

It added: “The report identified the page as a covert attempt to infiltrate Atiku’s audience of potential voters and manipulate their views, gradually spamming them with antithetical content and diverting them to the ‘Make Nigeria Worse’ page.”.