Online Disinformation Campaigns:

This investigation reveals that there is a coordinated campaign of disinformation on Facebook targeting migrants from sub-Saharan African countries, in which Tunisian accounts and pages post racist and misleading content. At the same time, migrant camps are being dismantled and Tunisians are forming patrols to hand over migrants to security services.

Outside a popular café in Tunis, dozens of African migrants have gathered, hoping to find a job to help to cover essential expenses. Usually in transport, construction or olive harvesting.

One of those hoping to find a day’s work is Traoré. “We don’t have any particular jobs, we’ll do everything, but there isn’t always work, ” he says.

Traoré is from Côte d’Ivoire and spent a year travelling through Burkina Faso, Niger, and Algeria.

Harsh living conditions were not the only thing Traoré has faced in Tunisia. “If you’re black in Tunisia, you’re powerless. Everyone does what they want to you, and you can’t do anything about it.”

While thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants like Traore face this difficulty on the ground, disinformation campaigns are running rampant in the digital sphere, stirring up hatred against them.

The Spark: “A State Within a State”

On March 6, 2025, Tunisian Member of Parliament Fatma Al-Masdi visited a migrant camp in El Amra, in the southern province of Sfax. The camp is a focal point for migrants from various African countries. In a post on her Facebook page following the visit, Fatma attached photos of the camp with the caption “A state within a state.” The post went viral and sparked a disinformation campaign on Facebook, inciting hatred against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

The following investigation reveals the details of disinformation campaigns circulating on Facebook, fuelled by misleading posts and allegations against sub-Saharan migrants. These led on to actual attacks on these migrants.

We analyzed posts about these migrants across 13 accounts and pages: Oussema Arfa, Ben Arfa (linked to Oussema Arfa’s page), Nizar Boudaya, Mohamed Missaoui, Aymen Guissi, "قهواجي البرلمان",
"الصفحة الرسمية", Politiket, Erajilelly9harhoum, TadamonLive, Ghostpolitic, BelFallegii, Carthage News, and TN أخبار.

Our investigation monitored every post on their accounts and pages related to African migrants in Tunisia. There were a total of 2,044 posts from March 6 to May 6, 2025.

We used the Arab Fact-Checking Network (AFCN) classification system for posted claims and assertions: true, partially false, false, sarcastic, unproven, missing context, context unclear, and modified. We classified posts that had no information requiring verification as “general content.”

We then analyzed 1,403 misleading posts about migrants, classifying them as: partially false, false, unproven, missing context, and context unclear.

Posts from personal accounts and pages included in our investigation - which we will refer to as “accounts” - focused on two main themes: promoting the idea that migrants want to settle in Tunisia and make it their alternative homeland; and calling for their deportation. Posts also carried visual and written content suggesting migrants were responsible for incidents of assault or theft against Tunisian citizens and for spreading disease.

By tracking the accounts, we noticed that many that were published at the same time, carried identical or similar posts. Among these were claims that the Tunisian parliament had rejected a proposal to deport migrants and had passed laws to integrate them. When we looked into this claim, it turned out to be “false”. The parliamentary bureau had passed no law on the deportation of irregular migrants, but had set aside a day to look into the issue. It also did not enact laws to accelerate their integration.

We noticed that the claim was posted on six accounts using the same wording, with identical images, and at almost the same time, which suggests that these accounts are coordinated or have the same administrator.

Accounts appeared to be coordinated through using the same profile images. Eight accounts posted identical profile images almost simultaneously on April 17, 2025. The accounts also live-streamed identical video footage at the same time on multiple instances. This strongly reinforces the hypothesis that these accounts are jointly managed or closely coordinate their content.

Following each other

A number of the accounts we analyzed follow each other on Facebook.

Tracking the network of accounts shows how they relate to each other on the platform. For example, we found that Mohamed Missaoui’s account follows five others: Ghostpolitic, TN News, BelFallegii, TadamounLive, and "قهواجي البرلمان".
"الصفحة الرسمية" follows three accounts: TadamounLive, Belfallegi, and Nizar Boudaya, but none of them follow back.

It was not possible to determine whether Oussema Arfa was a follower of the other accounts, as this account does not show who it follows. However, it appeared that he manages a group called “No to Settlement, No to Resettlement,” overseeing it along with others. This group has at least 75,000 members, including Nizar Boudaya and Mohamed Missaoui.

“Slaves,” “Cattle,” and “Black locusts”:
a Web of Racist Terms

We extracted the most frequently used words in misleading and inflammatory posts using content analysis. Many of the posts not only described migrants as “illegal” or “irregular,” but used racist terms, including a whole set of racist expressions, associating migrants with animals and diseases.

In these posts, migrants were likened to “black locusts,” in reference to their skin color and large numbers, as if they were comparing them to a plague that was ravaging the country. They also used the word “al-hawayish”, a local term for animals, and “plague,” which portrays migrants as a threat to health and society.

The word “wasfan”- the plural of “wasif, ” meaning servant or slave in Arabic – appears repeatedly, “Deportation” is also a word that appears often with a negative undertone in the network of accounts we monitored. When it appears, it is a call for the immediate mass expulsion of “Africans”.

Other words pop up like “settlement,” “colonization,” and “settlers”- central to the conspiracy theory promoted by these accounts. They allege that there is a plan to settle “African” migrants in Tunisia. This incitement is not limited to online activity, but has morphed into calls for action on the ground through protest marches under the slogan “Deportation, not settlement,” with the accompanying expansion of the use of the hashtag #No_to_settlement.

The discourse also features military and political terms like “invasion,” “occupation,” “African colonialism,” “borders,” and “sovereignty.” Posts sometimes carry explicit calls for violence and exclusion, through actions such as “deportation” and “expulsion.”

One of the most striking terms for Africans we have observed is “Ajsi” or just “A” - an acronym for“Africans south of the Sahara,” which has become a common way to classify migrants on a geographical-ethnic basis.

The inflammatory rhetoric also links migrants to security, health and economic threats by repeating words such as “danger,” “disease” and “crime.” This systematic association creates a stereotypical image in the mind of the person reading these posts, which portray migrants as an existential threat to Tunisian society.

Funded Posts

We tried to identify the sources of funding used by the network to promote misinformation and incitement against sub-Saharan migrants. We searched the Meta Ad library, and could only find the account of Nizar Boudaya, who used funded ads to disseminate videos inciting hatred against migrants. Boudaya posted four paid videos on April 6 and 9, 2025, three of which were related to migrants. This took place after the Tunisian authorities evacuated some of the migrant camps in Sfax.

According to the library, Nizar Boudaya is both the beneficiary and the one who paid for the sponsored adverts. But the library did not specify the actual amount he paid them.

Page showing Nizar BD as the funder of and beneficiary from the ads`

We looked into the videos funded by Nizar Boudaya’s account and found that the account had posted one on April 6, 2025 showing a newly built city where migrants were supposedly to be transferred, after being evacuated from their camps. The video was untrue, and was of a tourist campsite called “Zmela” in southern Tunisia, not housing units made ready for irregular migrants.

Despite this, seven accounts had posted the video on April 7 using the same title and with less than a 30-minute interval between posting times.

Another video promoted by Nizar Boudya’s account was posted on April 7, 2025, with the title “Jendouba... The lie of deportation... Security forces move Africans from Amiriya to the cities...Africans return to the capital and coastal areas.” This video also turned out to be false.

Through tracking, we found six Facebook pages from the network that had posted the video shortly after Nizar Boudaya, using the same title: “the deportation lie, ” following the closure of some migrant camps in Sfax by the Tunisian security forces.

A third video, which talked about Africans entering Tunisia while critically ill, turned out to be “true.”