The Stanford Internet Observatory has been investigating new facets to the manipulation of the local media environment in Libya: Russian actors who are known to have previously created and sponsored online news media fronts and associated Facebook pages, now appear to be expanding into similar activities in broadcast media. By surreptitiously financing a well-established well-known media brand, these actors are taking a Cold War-era strategy of supporting local media outlets and updating it for the digital age.

Over the past year Russia has become increasingly involved in the conflict in Libya. Some of this involvement is kinetic: Russian mercenary soldiers employed by firms linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close ties to Vladimir Putin, are fighting alongside Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) forces. Modern Russian weapons have been found on battlefields. Alongside the kinetic, the relationship includes media and information operations support for political candidates, and social media influence operations: Stanford Internet Observatory research previously found that Prigozhin-linked firms had created Facebook Pages bolstering not only Haftar but Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of Muammar Gaddafi’s surviving sons. Prigozhin may be trying to bring Gaddafi supporters to Haftar’s camp, or simply playing multiple sides of the local power game by bolstering two likely presidential contenders. While the motivation remains a matter of state strategy, it is clear that Russian actors are exerting influence via traditional as well as social media channels.

This involvement takes the form of both direct involvement in content creation as well as financial support for local creators, which presents a challenge for evaluating authenticity in the Libyan media ecosystem: when does foreign support for local media cross the line into facilitating inauthentic behavior?

In November the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative organization, shared an appendix from an internal Prigozhin-linked group document with the Stanford Internet Observatory team. The leaked document, dated March 20, 2019, describes three media interventions in Libya:

1. entering into a financial arrangement in which a Prigozhin-linked firm would own 50% of the former state-run TV station under Muammar Gaddafi (now supportive of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi); 
2. creating a physical pro-LNA newspaper, Voice of the People 
3. consulting on Alhadath, a Haftar-aligned TV station.

In this post, we discuss the social media and online presence of these television channels and the Voice of the People print newspaper. Key findings include:

• By secretly investing in a long-standing TV channel, Prigozhin is refining his ability to blur the lines of media authenticity. 
• The TV channel (and its related social media entities) have historically been pro-Gaddafi; in the months since investment, they additionally became supportive of Haftar. This backfired, with social media users mocking the obvious shift in tone and calling out what they perceived to be the channel’s foreign backers. 
• A real political party, the Civil Democratic Party, posts PDFs of the Prigozhin-funded newspaper on its Facebook Page, with the party’s logo on the paper’s header. The newspaper is vigorously anti-GNA and pro-Haftar.

Internal document from a Prigozhin-linked group. Source: The Dossier Center.

Aljamahiria TV station and Jana News Agency

The Aljamahiria TV channel was the former Libyan state-run broadcasting organization under Gaddafi. Anti-Gaddafi rebel forces removed it from the air in 2011. It appeared again in 2014, and is now on Nilesat, an Egyptian communications satellite.

The Dossier Center document describes “the company” (the name for the Prigozhin-linked group) providing technical, financial, and advisory support for a TV station, Aljamahiria TV since January 2019. The memo goes on to say that “the channel criticizes the activities of Khalifa Haftar [LNA], Khalid Al-Mishri [head of the Tripoli-based High Council of State] and Western countries” and supports Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and notes that “50% of the channel (in a joint venture) belongs to the Russian side” (translated).

The memo highlights the transformative effects of the Prigozhin investment, saying that the TV channel used to be:

chaotic, regularly interrupted for 2-3 months. Currently, the channel broadcasts on a regular basis and is popular with supporters of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. The channel’s monthly audience exceeds 6 million views in the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, the company’s employees created a unified information service for the Jamahiria TV channel and the Jana news agency. In March 2019, the company’s specialists launched 6 new regular broadcasts and resumed work [...]

The memo then shows before and after images of the studio, illustrating that the Prigozhin investment helped modernize the studio.

Heading reads: "On-air studio: Before and after working with the company"

Aljamahiria and Jana News Agency have an extensive presence on social media platforms, sometimes with substantial followings and frequent posting schedules:

Aljamahiriya TV station and Jana News Agency social media presence.

Content on social media accounts associated with this TV station indicate that it shares Muammar Gaddafi nostalgia content (ie, “Muammar Gaddafi, I wish that you would come back.”) and content supportive of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. For several months the additional posts on Aljamahiria’s Facebook Page were typically neutral news statements -- noting that there were clashes south of Tripoli, or posts about the weather.

In December 2019, however, the tone changed. Posts began to appear  that were critical of Turkish military support to the UN-recognized Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, and more supportive of the LNA. For example, a post on January 6, 2020 said قوات الشعب المسلح تحرر مدينة سرت (The forces of the armed population free the city of Sirte). The phrase “forces of the armed population” is a phrase originating from the Gaddafi regime to describe the official Libyan armed forces. Here the channel is using the term interchangeably to describe the LNA advancement on Sirte.

Posts on al-Jamahiriya became more anti-GNA over time. The anti-GNA slant measure comes from a dictionary of 37 words and phrases like “liberation” (as in “Haftar will liberate Tripoli”) and “Turkey” (as in “report reveals the number of Syrian mercenaries arriving from Turkey to Libya”) and “Qatar”/”terrorism”/”Muslim Brotherhood” (as in “Doha, funded by `Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood’ to spread terrorism in Libya”).

Beginning in December 2019, social media users noticed this trend; they called it “حفترة قناة الخضراء” (Hafterization of the Green Channel). On December 19 one Facebook user commented in a group that Aljamahiria had shifted from referring to “Haftar’s militias” to “the Armed Forces,” language that aligns Gaddafi-era terms with Haftar’s LNA. One Page mocked Aljamahiria’s dramatic shift in tone, suggesting satirically that even the word “prayers” needs to be renamed “Haftar’s prayers.” In one comment thread a user said “the channel is now with Haftar,” and another responded saying “no, Haftar is now with the channel.”

Authentic Gadaffi supporters took to Facebook to express their displeasure at how now Hafterized Aljamahiria was misrepresenting them. One commenter even wrote a few poetic verses to describe his anger:

Yes, he really hafterised it
from Ghat to Sebha ..
and He ruined it ..
The green channel, he hafterized it.

Yes, rats hafterize yourselves.
The zero hour always equals zero if it's according to the local time of the Karama leader's watch.

A user posted Aljamahiria content using laughing emojis after noting that Aljamahiria encouraged people to fight with Haftar.

A Facebook user commenting on Aljamahiria’s shift from referencing “Haftar’s militias” to “the Armed Forces.”

Aljamahiria then backed off the pro-LNA language; in one post they called Haftar a war criminal. But social media users noticed this shift in tone as well. In February 2020 a pro-GNA Page posted an Aljamahiria video, saying that the channel was suddenly criticizing Haftar after having encouraging the youth to fight with him. In response to an Aljamahiria video that was critical of Haftar and posted in February 2020, one user wrote: “why did u turn on the army?” (translated). Two users posted 1,500 word tomes theorizing about the shifts in Aljamahiria’s tone, with one directing remarks toward what he perceived to be Aljamahiria’s foreign backers: he accused Jamahiriya of accepting money from foreign countries and said that Jamahiriya had become a channel of “propaganda and distorted ideas.” A Twitter user commented on the new tone shift as well. 

Libya Facts, a pro-Gaddafi Page, defended the Aljamahiria Page, showing screenshots of anti-Haftar posts on Aljamahiria to allay suspicions. Libya Facts also noted that the channel is based out of Egypt and the Egyptian government carefully monitors who receives foreign funding, implying that Aljamahiria could not possibly be tied to any foreign entity. 

Aljamahiria has a professional, polished Instagram account, created in October 2019, which shares original Muammar Gaddafi nostalgia memes and pro-Saif al Islam Gaddafi memes. 

Upper left: A post from facebook.com/libyanfacts.ly attempting to prove the neutrality of Aljamahiria TV. The image caption says “Jamahiriya attacked Haftar.” Upper right: A post on the Aljamahiria Facebook Page. The text says, in part, Muammar Gaddafi, I wish that you would come back. Lower left: An ad run by the Aljamahiria Facebook Page. It reads, “The official account of the Jamahiriya (green) channel.” The channel was called The Green Channel under Muammar Gaddafi. Lower right: A meme bolstering Saif al-Islam Gaddafi on the Aljamahiria Instagram account.

The Jana News Agency, which is explicitly part of the Aljamahiria network (its logo says Aljamahiria News Agency) and is mentioned in the leaked document, has a website, jana-ly.co, that was created in January 2017. Its original Facebook Page had 5 admins in Egypt, 1 admin in the UK, and 3 admins whose location are hidden. This pattern is similar to the administrator ownership pattern of Facebook Pages involved in Libyan influence operations that we identified in previous research, where Pages typically had 5 Egyptian Page admins and 1 other admin in a European country. Interestingly, jana-ly.co has an article from November 2, 2019, reposted from Russian state media outlet Sputnik, about the Prigozhin-linked Facebook takedown of influence operations targeting Libya. It claims that Facebook removed those Pages in anger over the success of the Russia-Africa Sochi summit. In February 2020 its Page came down, and days later it respawned as facebook.com/jana2.ly with 3 admins in Egypt. 

We also found a Facebook Page called الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير ليبيا (Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya) that lists as its “media platforms” facebook.com/aljamahiriytv and facebook.com/janaly.co Like the TV channel and Jana News, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya Page has pro-Gaddafi content. It has also run anti-Sarraj and anti-Turkish ads. The Popular Front Page also lists facebook.com/safalbonyan, facebook.com/libya24tv, and facebook.com/libyamandela as additional “media platforms”, which similarly have pro-Gaddafi posts. All of these Pages have a majority of administrators in Egypt.  

Consistent with the trends we observe on these social platforms, New York Time reporting suggests that Haftar is welcoming support from former Gaddafi supporters.

Voice of the People Newspaper

Another entity mentioned in the Dossier Center memo is the Voice of the People newspaper. The memo notes that “since January 2019, the Company’s specialists began publishing the Voice of the People newspaper. The newspaper is distributed in the territory controlled by the LNA. The general content of the newspaper is criticism of the new draft Constitution, the policies of Al-Misri and Sarraj, support for the activities of the LNA and the image of Khalifa Haftar. The circulation of the newspaper is 300,000 copies. At the moment, 2 circulations of the newspaper have been prepared and distributed.”

The creation of a print newspaper is noteworthy. New York Times reporting suggests Russian entities created a newspaper in Madagascar in 2018 as well, saying: “Russians published their own newspaper in the local language and hired students to write fawning articles about the president to help him win another term.”

We found the two issues of the newspaper here and here -- as of February 2020, there don’t appear to be more. The newspaper is vehemently against the new draft constitution, encouraging citizens to vote “no” on it. The Constitutional Drafting Assembly voted to allow military personnel to be eligible for president only if they renounce their military positions two years before elections, a policy that pro-Haftar groups were against given that he would likely run for the position in the future. The latest (fourth) draft of the constitution also says that presidential candidates must relinquish any foreign nationalities at least one year before elections; Haftar has American citizenship. The Civil Democratic Party appears to be close to Haftar, and supports his offensive on Tripoli.  Accounts on Twitter have said that the newspaper is being distributed for free; one posted a photo of it.

Photo of the newspaper, Voice of the People. The Tweet says “Read the Voice of the People newspaper.”

The paper is branded with the logo of the Civil Democratic Party, and issues have been posted as PDFs on the Civil Democratic Party Facebook Page. The Party is made up of former members of Libya’s Transitional Council and former ambassadors. Its Facebook Page was created in September 2017, and has 3 admins in Libya. The CDP appears to have their own video recording capability, occasionally posting videos reminiscent of news broadcasts.

Cover page of the March 2019 issue of the Voice of the People newspaper.

The first issue of the newspaper, published in January 2019, included an article introducing the paper, written by the president of the party. The party leader expressed allegiances toward the LNA. The issue focused on criticizing the constitutional drafting project. Articles implied the new draft constitution was undemocratic and “succumbed to political Islam.” An opinion piece urged citizens to vote against the constitution.

A cartoon in the 2019 issue saying that the constitution project does not meet the demands of the people. The other cartoon criticized the constitution for preventing Haftar from competing in elections.

The first issue of the newspaper told Libyans not to be fooled, and to vote “no” on the draft constitution.

The second issue of the newspaper, published in March 2019, led with an article called “The Hidden Lebanese Government” (translated). The article alleged that the Government of National Accord -- the internationally-recognized Tripoli-based government -- is letting international actors like the UN and Lebanon take over the government. Another article on the cover page noted that the average Libyan is suffering, with queues at banks and corruption. The GNA should be replaced, it claimed, and the state should regain its monopoly on force and bring back the rule of law. A cartoon on the cover page shows the GNA Prime Minister bringing foreign allies a pie of Libya. Each foreign actor vies for a piece of Libya, and the Special Representative for the UN in Libya says there will be enough for everyone.

A cartoon of the UN serving a pie of Libya in the second issue of the Voice of the People newspaper.

Alhadath TV Station

The third aspect of this memo references the LNA-aligned TV channel: “In February 2019, the company’s specialists conducted an external audit of the activities of Alhadath TV channel (LNA channel), on the basis of which they prepared and presented their recommendations for the optimization of broadcasting to the [Haftar] team.” 

The Facebook Page associated with this TV channel has about 875,000 followers. It was created in 2016, and has seven Page administrators in Libya. The Page is generally pro-Haftar and often reposts statements from Haftar’s spokesman, Ahmed al Mismari. There is a Twitter account, @libyaalhadathtv, created in 2015, which has 89,100 followers. The only account that the Twitter account follows is @news9ly, which was created in July 2019 and shared LibyaAlhadathTV content. There is also a YouTube channel, created in 2016, which notes that the station (like Aljamahiria) is on Nilesat. Its associated website is libyaalhadath.net. The current nature of Prigozhin’s involvement in this TV channel is unclear, though we note that Facebook lists the Alhadath Page as a “Related Page” to the new Jana News Agency Page.

Pages discussed in this post, with a vertical line noting the start of January 2019. The internal document suggests some Prigozhin activities in Libya began in January.

Our prior research showed that Russian actors created Facebook Pages supportive of Saif Gaddafi and Haftar. This leaked document suggests that Russian actors are supporting these two figures in Libya’s traditional print and television media space as well. In our earlier research, we found that Russian actors had franchised out management of their Facebook Pages to content creators in Egypt. This made it harder for Libyans to detect the involvement of Russian actors. Similarly, here we see foreign actors inserting themselves into the legitimate Libyan media environment by way of financial support. While Libyans noticed the change in tone on the Pages, attributing that involvement to specific actors is a significant challenge. Going forward, the combination of franchising and virtually-undetectable financial support will make gauging the independence and authenticity of media outlets online and offline even more difficult for disinformation researchers. These tactics will also create difficult decisions for platforms about whether the behavior violates their terms of service. 

A Q&A with Professor Stephen Stedman, who serves as the Secretary General of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.

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At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Commission which includes FSI’s Nathaniel Persily, Alex Stamos, and Toomas Ilves, launched a new report, Protecting Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age. The report takes an in-depth look at the challenges faced by democracy today and makes a number of recommendations as to how best to tackle the threats posed by social media to free and fair elections. On Tuesday, February 25, professors Stedman and Persily will discuss the report’s findings and recommendations during a lunch seminar from 12-1:15 PM. To learn more and to RSVP, visit the event page.

Q: What are some of the major findings of the report? Are digital technologies a threat to democracy?

Steve Stedman: Our report suggests that social media and the Internet pose an acute threat to democracy, but probably not in the way that most people assume. Many people believe that the problem is a diffuse one based on excess disinformation and a decline in the ability of citizens to agree on facts. We too would like the quality of deliberation in our democracy to improve and we worry about how social media might degrade democratic debate, but if we are talking about existential threats to democracy the problem is that digital technologies can be weaponized to undermine the integrity of elections.

When we started our work, we were struck by how many pathologies of democracy are said to be caused by social media: political polarization; distrust in fellow citizens, government institutions and traditional media; the decline in political parties; democratic deliberation, and on and on. Social media is said to lessen the quality of democracy because it encourages echo chambers and filter bubbles where we only interact with those who share our political beliefs. Some platforms are said to encourage extremism through their algorithms.

What we found, instead, is a much more complex problem. Many of the pathologies that social media are said to create – for instance, polarization, distrust, and political sorting begin their trendlines before the invention of the Internet, let alone the smart phone. Some of the most prominent claims are unsupported by evidence, or are confounded by conflicting evidence. In fact, we say that some assertions simply cannot be judged without access to data held by the tech platforms.

Instead, we rely on the work of scholars like Yochai Benkler and Edda Humphries to argue that not all democracies are equally vulnerable to network propaganda and disinformation. It is precisely where you have high pre-existing affective polarization, low trust, and hyperpartisan media, that digital technologies can intensify and amplify polarization.

Elections and toxic polarization are a volatile mix. Weaponized disinformation and hate speech can wreak havoc on elections, even if they don’t alter the vote tallies. This is because democracies require a system of mutual security. In established democracies political candidates and followers take it for granted that if they lose an election, they will be free to organize and contest future elections. They are confident that the winners will not use their power to eliminate them or disenfranchise them. Winners have the expectation that they hold power temporarily, and accept that they cannot change the rules of competition to stay in power forever. In short, mutual security is a set of beliefs and norms that turn elections from being a one-shot game into a repeated game with a long shadow of the future.

In a situation already marred by toxic polarization, we fear that weaponized disinformation and hate speech can cause parties and followers to believe that the other side doesn’t believe in the rules of mutual security. The stakes become higher. Followers begin to believe that losing an election means losing forever. The temptation to cheat and use violence increases dramatically. 

Q: As far as political advertising, the report encourages platforms to provide more transparency about who is funding that advertising. But it also asks that platforms require candidates to make a pledge that they will avoid deceptive campaign practices when purchasing ads. It also goes as far as to recommend financial penalties for a platform if, for example, a bot spreading information is not labelled as such. Some platforms might argue that this puts an unfair onus on them. How might platforms be encouraged to participate in this effort?

SS: The platforms have a choice: they can contribute to toxic levels of political polarization and the degradation of democratic deliberation, or they can protect electoral integrity and democracy. There are a lot of employees of the platforms who are alarmed at the state of polarization in this country and don’t want their products to be conduits of weaponized disinformation and hate speech. You saw this in the letter signed by Facebook employees objecting to the decision by Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook would treat political advertising as largely exempt from their community standards. If ever there were a moment in this country that we should demand that our political parties and candidates live up to a higher ethical standard it is now. Instead Facebook decided to allow political candidates to pay to run ads even if the ads use disinformation, tell bald-faced lies, engage in hate speech, and use doctored video and audio. Their rationale is that this is all part of “the rough and tumble of politics.” In doing so, Facebook is in the contradictory position that it has hundreds of employees working to stop disinformation and hate speech in elections in Brazil and India, but is going to allow politicians and parties in the United States to buy ads that can use disinformation and hate speech.

Our recommendation gives Facebook an option that allows political advertisement in a way that need not enflame polarization and destroy mutual security among candidates and followers: 1.) Require that candidates, groups or parties who want to pay for political advertising on Facebook sign a pledge of ethical digital practices; 2.) Then use the standards to determine if an ad meets the pledge or not. If an ad uses deep fakes, if an ad grotesquely distorts the facts, if an ad out and out lies about what an opponent said or did, then Facebook would not accept the ad. Facebook can either help us raise our electoral politics out of the sewer or it can ensure that our politics drowns in it.

It’s worth pointing out that the platforms are only one actor in a many-sided problem. Weaponized disinformation is actively spread by unscrupulous politicians and parties; it is used by foreign countries to undermine electoral integrity; and it is often spread and amplified by irresponsible partisan traditional media. Fox News, for example, ran the crazy conspiracy story about Hilary Clinton running a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor in DC. Individuals around the president, including the son of the first National Security Adviser tweeted the story. 

Q: While many of the recommendations focus on the role of platforms and governments, the report also proposes that public authorities promote digital and media literacy in schools as well as public interest programming for the general population. What might that look like? And how would that type of literacy help protect democracy? 

SS: Our report recommends digital literacy programs as a means to help build democratic resilience against weaponized disinformation. Having said that however, the details matter tremendously. Sam Wineburg at Stanford, who we cite, has extremely insightful ideas for how to teach citizens to evaluate the information they see on the Internet, but even he puts forward warnings: if done poorly digital literacy could simply increase citizen distrust of all media, good and bad; digital literacy in a highly polarized context begs the question of who will decide what is good and bad media. We say in passing that in addition to digital literacy we need to train citizens to understand biased assimilation of information. Digital literacy trains citizens to understand who is behind a piece of information and who benefits from it. But we also need to teach citizens to stand back and ask, “why am I predisposed to want to believe this piece of information?”

Q: Obviously access to data is critical for researchers and commissioners to do their work, analysis and reporting. One of the recommendations asks that public authorities compel major internet platforms to share meaningful data with academic institutions. Why is it so important for platforms and academia to share information?

SS: Some of the most important claims about the effects of social media can’t be evaluated without access to the data. One example we cite in the report is the controversy about whether YouTube’s algorithms radicalize individuals and send them down a rabbit hole of racist, nationalist content. This is a common claim and has appeared on the front pages of the New York Times. The research supporting the claim, however, is extremely thin, and other research disputes it. What we say is that we can’t adjudicate this argument unless YouTube were to share its data, so that researchers can see what the algorithm is doing. There are similar debates concerning the effects of Facebook. One of our commissioners, Nate Persily, has been at the forefront of working with Facebook to provide certified researchers with privacy protected data – Social Science One. Progress has been so slow that the researchers have lost patience. We hope that governments can step in and compel the platforms to share the data.

Q: This is one of the first reports to look at this problem in the Global South. Is the problem more or less critical there?

SS: Kofi Annan was very concerned that the debate about digital technologies and democracy was far too focused on Europe and the United States. Before Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the United States and Brexit elections of 2016, its predecessor company had manipulated elections in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. There is now a transnational industry in election manipulation.

What we found does not bode well for democracies in the rest of the world. The factors that make democracies vulnerable to network propaganda and weaponized disinformation are often present in the Global South: pre-existing polarization, low trust, and hyperpartisan traditional media. Many of these democracies already have a repertoire of electoral violence. 

On the other hand, we did find innovative partnerships in Indonesia and Mexico where Election Management Bodies, civil society organizations, and traditional media cooperated to fight disinformation during elections, often with success. An important recommendation of the report is that greater attention and resources are needed for such efforts to protect electoral integrity in the Global South. 

About the Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age

 As one of his last major initiatives, in 2018 Kofi Annan convened the Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. The Commission includes members from civil society and government, the technology sector, academia and media; across the year 2019 they examined and reviewed the opportunities and challenges for electoral integrity created by technological innovations. Assisted by a small secretariat at Stanford University and the Kofi Annan Foundation, the Commission has undertaken extensive consultations and issue recommendations as to how new technologies, social media platforms and communication tools can be harnessed to engage, empower and educate voters, and to strengthen the integrity of elections. Visit  the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age for more on their work.