False voting claims spread via websites and Facebook ads
Authors: Alyssa Kann, Digital Forensic Research Lab. Jackson Eilers, and Shelby Grossman, Stanford Internet Observatory.
Contributors: Daniel Bush and Alessandro Vecchiato, Stanford Internet Observatory.
Two connected websites, one billing itself as a civil rights NGO and the other posing as a “truth” based news site, published articles with untrue claims about voting in the American presidential elections. The sites’ corresponding social media presence, operated from Facebook pages with managers in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and the United States, spread these false claims partially using Facebook advertisements. While previous reporting has suggested that Russian actors may be hiring Nigerians to create content targeting the US, there is no evidence to suggest that the actors we discuss here are connected to those operations.
The Websites and their Connections
The two websites, Plain Truth Now (plaintruthnow.org) and Civil Rights International (civilrightsinternational.org), appear to be connected to each other. Both websites post a mix of content about Nigerian and US politics, and have cross-posted the same content, including a post with false claims about fraudulent voting, described in the section below. Additionally, our analysis indicates that the two websites have been linked to the same Nigerian individual. The registrar email for the Plain Truth Now website was previously used to register the Civil Rights International website in 2014. The EIP reached out to this individual for comment, but did not receive a response.
RiskIQ historical records indicating that the email was previously the registrant and admin of civilrightsinternational.org, top. Who.is read-out linking the same email to plaintruthnow.org.
While the Civil Rights International site bills itself as “an international non-governmental organization,” it was not listed as a UN-accredited NGO nor in two online databases of NGOs. Both sites post content about US politics, Nigeria politics, and Middle East politics. Their coverage of US politics is right-leaning and supportive of Trump. The posts often praise Trump for his record, attack Joe Biden and other high profile Democrats, and occasionally undermine the integrity of the election by claiming that mail-in voting makes it easier for the rigging of an election. There are also articles about Nigeria, which are generally critical of President Muhammadu Buhari. Their coverage of Middle East politics often takes a pro-Israel stance. We note that many Nigerians from the southeastern part of the country support Trump.
The two websites also boost each other’s social media presence. For instance, the Plain Truth Now Facebook Page often shares articles from civilrightsinternational.com, and we found two examples of Twitter accounts called Plain Truth commenting on Civil Rights International tweets (here from @PlainTruth20, and here from @PlainTruthNow.)
False Claims about Voting
Plain Truth Now has run about 20 Facebook ads on social issues, elections, or politics in 2020. These ads cost a total of $814. One of these advertisements, which was taken down by Facebook after an EIP alert, spread the unsubstantiated claim that a dead man received a ballot in a state he never lived in, affiliating him with a party he never belonged to. There were several debunked voting-related claims in this advertisement, including:
Falsely stating that there had been “widespread ballot harvesting by Biden’s campaign director in Harris County”;
Wrongly claiming that there had also been ballot harvesting in Ilhan Omar’s district in Minneapolis;
Incorrectly stating that there are “hundreds of piles of Republican ballots for Trump, dumped in at Luzerne county.”
The advertisement also included non-voting political claims which are false, like incorrectly stating that “Trump… still donates all of his presidential salaries to charity” and claiming that the results of US elections typically “were known and pronounced almost instantaneously and in a matter of hours after the election.”
Despite being taken down, the ad post is still visible without any caveats in various Facebook groups, including a “Florida Deplorables for President Trump” group, a Spanish-language pro-Trump group, an “Open Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada And Colorado” group, and a group named “TRUMPERS” with 66.6k members. As of publication, this is still the case.
Another Plain Truth Now advertisement included other false voting-related claims, falsely alleging that Democrats want to implement mail-in voting in order to ballot-harvest, wrongly claiming that “ballot harvesting is highly vulnerable to fraud and abuse,” and describing mail-in voting as a “scam.” This ad shared a Civil Rights International article entitled, “Democrats’ push for mail-in voting, very fraudulent.” The article claims that “mail-in voting, among other leftists’ agenda, is vulnerable to many undemocratic practices,” a claim that has been proven to be untrue. This article was cross-posed on both the Plain Truth Now and Civil Rights International websites. While the ad was taken down, the post itself is still up on Facebook. Other advertisements attacked Biden, praised Trump for his successes as president, and praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A removed ad that shared unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud (left) and a removed ad that pushed narratives about Democrats and voter fraud (right).
In July 2020 Civil Rights International spent less than 100 GBP to run one political ad on Facebook - the only ad visible in the Ad Library. This ad targeted individuals in the UK, and at first appeared to be an ad about Black Lives Matters and English football. In paragraph six, however, it pivoted to Nigeria, saying: “Black Lives Matter, everyone agrees! And so also does the thousands of Christians killed in northern Nigeria only in 2020. These killings in Nigeria among many others, are graver, suffering insufficient media coverage and in need of equal urgent global attention.” The ad ended by tagging English football leagues, Republican politicians, American celebrities, and Human Rights Watch.
An ad from the Civil Rights International Facebook Page.
Conclusion
Two seemingly separate websites, Plain Truth Now and Civil Rights International, are connected to each other and have coordinated content which includes false claims about voting. These sites spread these false claims on Facebook, partially using Facebook advertisements. The ads with false voting claims were taken down by Facebook, but one of the ads is still visible in several pro-Trump Facebook groups, and posts using the text of the ads are also still up.