A sophisticated network of fake social media accounts sprang to the impassioned defense of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte after he was sent to the International Criminal Court to face charges over his bloody drug war.
Around a third of accounts discussing the arrest on the platform X, mostly praising Duterte and lambasting the court, were fake, according to research by a tech firm that termed it a "deliberate, organized" campaign.
The accounts acted with a sophistication that made them hard to distinguish from real people, it said.
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