WASHINGTON: Dozens of Facebook groups bill themselves as Kamala Harris fan pages but mount racist attacks, criticize her record on immigration and promote her rival Donald Trump, in what disinformation researchers call a “bait-and-switch” tactic aimed at deceiving voters in a tight US election race.
The Washington-based American Sunlight Project analyzed over 300 groups on the Meta-owned platform that masquerade as pro-Harris pages while misleading the Democratic contender’s supporters with abusive, hateful posts or capitalize on her popularity to promote merchandise.
The proliferation of such Facebook groups, which typically bring together communities with shared interests, does not appear to be an organized effort and illustrates a sophisticated tactic to seed false election narratives in trusted online spaces.
“These are usually places where there is a high level of trust between members, making them more likely to believe what is being shared there, whether that is election disinformation, miracle cures or memes,” Nina Jankowicz, ASP’s co-founder and chief executive, told AFP.
The “bait-and-switch” tactic appears to target actors across the political spectrum, including Trump.
But Jankowicz, the former Department of Homeland Security disinformation chief, said her research outfit noticed an “explosion” of such groups focused on Harris since she entered the presidential race over the summer.
One group purports to be a space for “Kamala Harris fans,” with its “about” section hailing her as a “trailblazer, a symbol of diversity, and a champion for justice and equality.”
But inside the group, posts seek to undermine Harris, including one with a photo of a brown woman smearing her face with black paint alongside the caption: “Kamala getting ready to talk to Black people.”
The post echoed Trump’s false claim that Harris “turned Black” and that she was exploiting her race to woo African-American voters.
Harris is the first Black, South Asian and woman vice president in US history.

Promoting Trump rhetoric

Another group that calls itself “Democratic voices for President Kamala Harris 2024” posted messages in support of “Make America Great Again” — the political movement and slogan popularized by Trump.
One video posted in the group showed Charlie Kirk — a conservative influencer whose political organization is focused on getting Trump reelected — promoting the Republican’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
A similar group savaged Harris as a “border czar” who has failed to curb undocumented migration into the United States — an attack line constantly repeated by Trump and his supporters.
One other group calling itself “Kamala Harris 2024” posted a sexist meme mocking the preference of some voters for a “female president” in the face of what it depicted as pressing issues confronting the country.
Many of the “Harris” groups analyzed by ASP were run by lone actors, including some non-US moderators in Africa or Eastern Europe.
Some groups posted about topics unrelated to the vice president, including religious cult-like content, and were hotbeds for spam and merchandise sales. Many were not started from scratch, having changed their names several times to capitalize on trending issues to gain traction, ASP said.

Violation of Meta policies
In a statement to AFP, a Meta spokesman said: “Protecting the election on our platforms is one of our top priorities, and we continue to enforce our policies when we find violating content or behavior.”
Meta has previously extolled Facebook groups in commercials for their power to bring people together.
The so-called bait-and-switch strategy appears to violate Meta’s policies regarding inauthentic behavior or “complex deception,” which among other things forbids the use of its platforms to deceive users about the purpose of content.
ASP said the groups it analyzed were a representative sample and it was unable to get a fulsome picture of the scale of the abuse after Meta in August shut down CrowdTangle — a digital tool researchers hailed as vital in monitoring falsehoods.
Meta has replaced it with a Content Library, a technology that has similar functionality but is still under development.
ASP shared samples of a handful of similar “bait-and-switch” groups dedicated to Trump.
“This phenomenon isn’t unique to Harris — groups are used and abused this way across the political spectrum and across topics,” Jankowicz said.
“As we get closer to Election Day and during what is likely to be a tumultuous transition period to follow, it’s important that people slow down and try to be more deliberate when consuming content online,” she added.
 

LONDON: A Palestinian student has won an appeal against the UK government after her student visa was revoked in 2023 due to statements on the Gaza situation that the Home Office deemed “not conducive to the public good.”

The Home Office had stripped Dana Abu Qamar, a dual Jordanian-Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin and University of Manchester student, of her visa after concluding that her remarks on Gaza’s resistance to Israel posed a risk to public safety.

However, a tribunal overturned the ruling on Wednesday, declaring that her comments did not constitute extremism.

Court documents show that her visa was revoked after the then-immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, intervened in the case. Qamar, who leads the Friends of Palestine society at the university, stated that his involvement “sends a chilling message to activists,” calling it part of a “brutal crackdown.”

The tribunal’s judgment also concluded that Abu Qamar’s reference to Israel as an “apartheid” state aligned with views held by multiple human rights organizations and found her language around “actively resisting” and “breaking free” to be consistent with lawful expressions of Palestinian resistance. The court also determined she was “not an extremist.”

Commenting on her legal victory, Qamar said “justice has prevailed” and that she was happy with the result.

“This ruling validates the right to voice support for human rights for the plight of Palestinians and the right to resist occupation,” she said on Wednesday.

Her statements, which initially attracted government scrutiny, came during a speech at a pro-Palestine rally in Manchester, in which she remarked, “We are full of pride, we are really, full of joy at what has happened,” referencing the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

Later, in a BBC interview, she clarified her stance, saying: “The death of any innocent civilian should not be condoned ever, and we don’t condone it at all.”

Abu Qamar, who has lost 22 relatives in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing campaign and whose paternal grandparents were displaced by the 1948 Nakba, reiterated her opposition to harm against civilians, adding: “I’ve always been of the position that I never have or never will condone harm to innocent civilians. It doesn’t align with who I am as a person, with my character and with my views. I’ve made that explicitly clear throughout and I’m glad that the court has seen that.”