In an unfurnished flat in a nondescript Ahmedabad neighbourhood in western India, a 22-year-old digital content creator worked through the nights, designing posters and editing videos for a presidential campaign thousands of kilometres away — William Ruto’s 2022 bid for the presidency in Kenya.
asserted
creator → work → Kenya
Rajan Kumar’s content was not shared by Ruto’s official campaign.
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content → share → campaign
Instead, the 50 social media posts he created for $7 a day were shared on shadow social media accounts that conceal their identity to make coordinated messaging appear independent while backing Ruto’s campaign.
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messaging → create → campaign
For content, Kumar said he would trim opposing leaders’ speeches or interviews to twist their statements, or create posters with false claims amplifying Ruto’s prospects and popularity ahead of the election.
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he → say → election
“If there’s a woman politician, we simply link her to someone to damage her reputation.
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we → ’ → reputation
It’s one of the easiest ways to discredit,” Kumar told Al Jazeera, adding that “all controversial content” is diverted to shadow pages for “extensive distribution”.
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content → ’ → distribution
Ruto won the 2022 election and became Kenya’s fifth president.
Four years later, as the United States heads into its midterm elections on Tuesday, researchers have found that Indian social media bots and accounts have been shadow-posting videos backing specific campaigns.
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bots → win → campaigns
The New York Times first reported such posts supporting US Democratic politician Haley Stevens ahead of the August 4 Senate primary in Michigan, which she lost to Abdul El-Sayed, the party’s candidate for the midterm election.
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she → report → election
But the US is only the latest theatre of electoral war where politicians are banking on Indian social media mercenaries-for-hire, who have fought shadow election campaigns in several countries in South America and Africa.
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who → bank → America
Nearly a dozen political consultants in India, who spoke with Al Jazeera for this report, say there are no limits, guardrails, or red lines in such shadow campaigns.
“We are manipulating elections; there is no other way to say it,” said Tushar Giri, a political consultant in New Delhi.
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Giri → speak → Delhi
Everything is manipulated.”
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Everything → manipulate → ?
‘Hidden sources of power’
Political consultancies advise politicians and election campaigns on how to win public support and elections.
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consultancies → advise → support
Such specialised private companies selling political persuasion as a service emerged in the US in the 1930s.
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companies → sell → 1930s
With the boom in social media, dirty tricks have spread to online platforms to manipulate and attract voters, especially by running targeted advertising campaigns on Meta and Google platforms to reach millions of voters.
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tricks → spread → voters
Previous reports have found that Russia used similar tactics to influence voters in the US, for instance.
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Russia → find → instance
Strategies for dissemination of content deemed too controversial for official accounts during election campaigns vary, ranging from political consultancies taking over a party’s established shadow pages on Meta or Google to making new ones from scratch, rebranding existing pages to suit a campaign’s needs, or opting for pages for hire.
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consultancies → deem → hire
An Al Jazeera investigation in the run-up to India’s 2024 national election revealed a sprawling network of such shadowy pages on Meta and Google products like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube on sale — skirting the platforms’ policies against such misuse of targeted advertisements to influence voters.
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investigation → reveal → voters
Antibot4Navalny, an anonymous group of disinformation researchers that investigates and exposes coordinated online influence operations, particularly those linked to Russia, told Al Jazeera that it found at least 28 such accounts on X (formerly Twitter) sharing videos supporting Stevens’s campaign in the Democratic primary in Michigan, garnering more than seven million views.
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accounts → investigate → views
At least 15 of the identified accounts were posting from India, a review by Al Jazeera has found.
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review → identify → Jazeera
Researchers at Clemson University’s Media Forensic Hub have also identified similar tactics being used by for-hire Indian accounts and pages to support Stevens’s campaign against El-Sayed.
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Researchers → identify → Sayed
Amogh Dhar Sharma, author of Backstage of Democracy — a book on Indian political consultancies’ workings, said politicians like to keep voters’ focus ahead of elections “on things that happen in the public eye”.
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that → say → eye
“But sometimes the real power is being wielded, completely hidden from the public eye,” Sharma told Al Jazeera, referring to political consultancies.
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Sharma → wield → consultancies
“The way it creates certain, hidden sources of power in a democracy is one of the biggest ethical concerns.”
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it → create → concerns
In India, such political consultancies now make up the backbone of any election campaign, and their work serves as marketing material to lure politicians in other countries.
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work → make → countries
“We have a proven track record of delivering desired results in a complicated electoral democracy like India, which now attracts foreign campaigns too,” said Giri, the New Delhi-based consultant.
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Giri → have → campaigns
Rules set by Meta, Facebook’s parent firm, disallow users from any “attempt to or successfully sell, buy, or exchange” accounts, or from operating under false or stolen identities.
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Rules → set → identities
In general, both Meta and Google’s policies require political advertisers to verify their identities and disclose who paid for election advertisements, though specific rules vary from country to country.
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rules → require → country
But Indian consultants tell Al Jazeera that these community standards are routinely violated.
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standards → tell → Jazeera
“These platforms have long pages of such rules, but when you read between the lines, there are several loopholes one can exploit,” said Giri.
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Giri → have → lines
Premium virtual private networks (VPNs) are the go-to tools for such consultancies when they face restrictions in one geography.
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they → go → geography
Sometimes, changing an account’s country of origin simply does the job, enabling a person sitting in a foreign country to run targeted political advertisements.
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changing → change → advertisements
Giri recalled meeting representatives of a presidential campaign in Suriname last year, although negotiations ultimately fell through.
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negotiations → recall → Suriname
Sharma, the author, told Al Jazeera that he found Indian consultancies working in Australia and Germany as well during his research.
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consultancies → tell → research
Consultants told Al Jazeera that they have similarly worked on campaigns in India’s neighbouring countries, including Nepal and Sri Lanka.
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they → tell → Nepal
Kumar, who worked for Ruto’s campaign for the Kenyan presidency in 2022, said he was paid about $7 a day under a monthly contract and was asked to deliver up to 100 creatives on some days, coordinated via groups on Telegram.
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he → work → Telegram
He said he never worked directly with any of Ruto’s representatives, and that content creators like him are never informed of the identities of all the individuals involved in the supply chain that leads up to senior officials in a campaign.
“One always needs to be careful and hide footprints nonetheless,” he said.
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he → say → footprints
Chats are deleted, and SIM cards are destroyed frequently.
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cards → delete → ?
Two Indian political consultants, Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan and Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai, who were working for Ruto’s campaign, went missing in Nairobi in July 2022 ahead of the election.
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who → work → election
They were found dead in October, allegedly abducted by an elite police unit in Kenya.
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They → find → Kenya
After winning, Ruto disbanded that unit.
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Ruto → win → unit
…and 20 more, not listed.
The Aporia
