On a recent afternoon inside the digital campaign headquarters of Ukrainian comedian and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskyy, around a dozen young volunteers sat glued to computer screens. Their task was twofold: to scour social media sites for impostor accounts and “fake news” about their candidate while trying to fend off armies of bots spreading negative comments on official campaign pages.
In the politically charged atmosphere surrounding a presidential election that’s now just 13 days away, it is an exhausting, never-ending task. Just ask 28-year-old Mikhail Fedorov, a digital strategist who leads a clever campaign that builds on Zelenskyy’s own viral posts.
“Every day there’s a large number of fakes we have to fight against,” Fedorov, whose private firm specializes in advertising on Facebook and Instagram, told RFE/RL between strategy sessions with his team for the Zelenskyy campaign.
Most, he added, are discovered on Facebook.
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