Jurisdiction: United States 

Pages removed from: Facebook

Date of removal: 05 May 2019.

Number of Facebook Pages deleted: 1

Additional information: Our client was President of the Regional State of an African country. A group of people had created a fake Facebook Page that gave the impression that it belongs to the President. The fraudulent Facebook Page was using images of the President and was being used to make personal and political comments in relation to the President and the Region which were falsely attributed to the President. The genuine Facebook Page states that it was an Official Government Page whereas the fraudulent Facebook Page only claimed to be a “Community Page”. Whilst the official President Facebook Page had over 300,000 followers, the fraudulent Page had approximately 17,000. Nonetheless, both the President and Government were concerned that the fraudulent Facebook Page was provoking national unrest by spreading fake news. They were concerned that the fake Facebook Page was gathering momentum fast. Our expert social media lawyers used an existing contact with Facebook to quickly explain the complex situation. Facebook agreed to delete the fake Facebook Page whilst our client agreed to not persist with his disclosure order application aiming to disclosure the identity of the people behind the fake Facebook Page.