Why are pro-Trump posts popping on a Haitian-American Facebook page? It’s been hacked

MIAMI — The first email came in early September, around the time the Haitian-American Facebook page began posting about the Trump campaign’s falsehoods about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets.

Too busy to look at the email invite at first, Wanda Tima, the founder of the social media page with a half-million followers, finally decided to give it a read. It was an invite to a Zoom call to set up a podcast interview series on Haitian-American entrepreneurs. Tima, who is also the founder of L’union Suite, the South Florida-based social media platform and entertainment company that promotes positive news about Haiti and Haitians, got on the phone and the caller on the other end began walking her and her assistant through a series of screens and links. Unbeknownst to them, however, it was a phishing expedition. After a series of clicks, the two had given hackers access to 470,000 Facebook followers and an estimated reach of 7 million through Tima’s business portfolio on the site.

In the weeks since, ads against Kamala Harris and favoring Donald Trump have been popping up — and Tima’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing, with irate followers accusing her of promoting the Republican candidate to her cadre of mostly Democratic and liberal followers. Tima discovered the attack when followers of the page began sending her screenshots of the pro-Trump ads. The posts are all backdated to October 2023 dates, so they are buried in the page’s timeline, but they have been appearing in the feeds of followers, an indication that hackers have been targeting her demographics.