The west African nation has long been home to an informal artisanal mining sector.
In April, the government took steps to rein in the “galamsey” -- as illegal mining is known -- by banning foreigners from trading in Ghana’s local gold markets and granting exclusive authority to do so to a new state body, the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod).
But ahead of the ban, fake accounts impersonating real Ghanaians on X had been pushing a coordinated effort to link China to galamsey explicitly for at least nine months, accounts seen by AFP and reviewed by disinformation experts show.
Who was behind the push remains unclear.
“Corruption be big wahala (problem) for here -- look at galamsey, when Chinese come inside, everything change sharp,“ said one typical post in Ghanaian Pidgin English, which researchers contacted by AFP identified as written by a bot.
Another accused Chinese companies of wanting to “exploit we (our) resources and leave we (our) people with nothing.”
Competing interests
One typical phrasing had been repeated by various bots since July 2024, a search on X showed -- but stopped being used completely just hours after the rule was passed.
Grace Ansah-Akrofi, a police spokeswoman, said that officers have been “vigilant and proactive in detecting and dismantling digital networks engaged in disinformation”, but did not provide details on the bot campaign specifically.
If the campaign was affiliated with the government, it would have had to span rival administrations: John Mahama was elected president in December after running for the opposition against incumbent Nana Akufo-Addo.
He also pointed out that Ghana lies just south of the volatile Sahel region, where Russia, the West and other foreign powers have jockeyed for influence.
The accounts also posted about hot sauce, a British football team and Russia’s role in the conflict in Mali.
Linvill also said that the campaign shed light on a “blind spot” when it comes to disinformation and influence campaigns, where researchers often focus on Chinese, Russian and Iranian campaigns against Westerners.
The most common culprits behind influence campaigns, he added, are governments trying to sway their own people.
In May, the GoldBod announced its first arrests of foreign nationals since the ban. All the men in the group were from India.
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