“Before you share online, ask yourself five questions: Who is behind this information?” began a meme originally published by United Nations-partnered project Share Verified — and then tweeted out by a Twitter account masquerading as a Malian citizen but really run by a French influence operation. The instance was as insidious as it was ironic: Facebook’s recent takedown of the operation in question marks the company’s first sanction of people affiliated with a Western government, and it ought to be the last. The dangerous precedent these efforts set threatens the integrity of political discourse worldwide.
