An Israeli influence-for-hire company appears to have trained Angolan government officials to run online influence operations, including creating fake social media personas and producing content designed to promote the government, according to new research.
The company, BlackCore, described itself online as “an elite influence, cyber, and technology firm built for the modern era of information warfare.” Documents obtained by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab show BlackCore initially advertised the Angola project as an intensive four-week course covering storytelling, copywriting, traffic management and social media operations. It ultimately lasted 14 weeks and involved both training and practical operations, a final report showed.
Participants produced more than 40 pieces of content, while trainers evaluated at least 24 publications. The program also included Facebook and Instagram advertising and a TikTok campaign.
The intention was to promote what BlackCore called “positive government campaigns” and included narratives intended to portray the Angolan government “in a positive light,” rather than merely attacking government opponents, Citizen Lab senior researcher Alberto Fittarelli said.
At the center of the operation was a Facebook page for a fictitious media outlet called “Agita News,” which published its own material and linked to articles on an external website. Both are now offline.
BlackCore’s broader marketing materials advertised more aggressive capabilities, claiming it could provide clients with hundreds of fake personas, or “avatars,” across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Its services included flooding online platforms with coordinated messages, generating engagement from real users and countering unwanted narratives with tailored content.
Determining whether an influence operation actually changed public opinion is difficult, but BlackCore appeared eager to demonstrate that its Angola operation was generating attention, researchers said.
Screenshots included in the company’s final report showed some deceptive Facebook posts receiving roughly 20,000 likes, according to Citizen Lab. Some posts that remained accessible later approached 50,000 likes — “substantial amounts in a country with an estimated six million active Facebook users.”
Citizen Lab could not independently confirm that the training took place or determine which Angolan government employees participated but the combination of internal documents and online infrastructure uncovered by researchers made it “highly likely” that the program occurred as BlackCore described it.
The researchers told Recorded Future News they found no evidence detailing how BlackCore was hired, whether the Angolan government paid the company directly or how much it cost.
Since the trainings, which likely began in February, BlackCore’s websites and social media accounts have been taken offline. Citizen Lab said it was unable to find a recent contact point for the company to seek comment, and the Angolan government did not respond to Recorded Future News’ request for comment.
Broader operations
BlackCore’s activities have previously drawn scrutiny from European authorities.
France’s foreign-interference watchdog Viginum said in June that an information operation targeting the left-wing France Unbowed party and some of its candidates during municipal elections showed technical links to Israeli actors, including BlackCore. The campaign used websites and coordinated accounts across several social media platforms to disparage candidates and polarize political debate.
French authorities said they could not determine who commissioned the operation.
Viginum later said BlackCore was also suspected of interference activity targeting elections or political audiences in New York, Scotland, Angola and Togo.
Meta said in an August threat report that it had disrupted a coordinated network originating in Israel that targeted audiences in Angola and several other countries. According to Citizen Lab, the network was highly likely to have been operated by BlackCore.
Citizen Lab said the Angola case illustrates how governments can increasingly acquire ready-made infrastructure and expertise for covert online influence campaigns from private contractors.
BlackCore’s proposal for Angola promised what it called a “professional, robust, and scalable” system for government communications, according to the researchers.
“It is not highly common” for contractors to train their clients to conduct influence operations themselves, Fittarelli told Recorded Future News, rather than running campaigns on behalf of their clients.
“Training clients to run their operations independently has been historically observed as a likely way to evade detection,” he said.
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