the verified accounts of the Prime Minister on Facebook, VKontakte, Twitter, YouTube and Periscope (Sputnik, 2019). In response to consistent allegations of fake accounts, deputy chairman of the Nur Otan Party, Maulen Ashimbayev, said that the party did not use anonymous commentators or fake accounts to promote the party. However, he said that the party did encourage its members to be active on social media (Tengrinews.kz, 2019). Fake accounts employ different strategies depending on the platform. Mass-reporting of content has proved successful on Instagram, which has resulted in livestreams being taken down -- suggesting that there is a high-level of coordination. Activist videos uploaded onto YouTube are often disliked. Telegram channels have hundreds of thousands of bots to inflate the number of members, and information is deliberately leaked through these channels to manipulate public opinion. There is also speculation that several Telegram channels are linked to Russia, evidenced by their use of Russian -- rather than Kazakh Russian -- as would be expected from a Kazakh channel. Disinformation on Messaging Apps The most prolific platform for manipulation is WhatsApp. This is due to the ubiquity of WhatsApp in Kazakhstan, the end-to-end encryption preventing fact-checking, and the familial networks that facilitate the fast dissemination of information. As trust in government institutions remains low, great trust is often placed in the secrecy and intimacy of WhatsApp groups among friends and family. Two themes emerge from Factcheck.kz’s debunking of disinformation on WhatsApp: fake stories often originate or spread to other Central Asian or Eurasian states; and stories are sometimes circulated so widely that institutions and officials are compelled to respond. • In September 2018, a message spread through WhatsApp that reported that ISIS terrorists were pretending to be doctors and injecting people with a virus. This story originated in Russia, but the location of the headline was cropped out and it was spread in Kazakhstan (Factcheck, 2018a). • A warning spread on WhatsApp about a “dangerous gang of paedophiles” luring children into their cars. This was debunked as fake, with the warning dating back to 2009 and having already been exposed as fake in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia (Factcheck, 2018b). • A message claimed that “all means of communication are connected to government systems”. Factcheck.kz determined that this first appeared in Russia in 2017, and had spread over Viber and WhatsApp across Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. The Kazakh Interior Ministry was compelled to deny the rumours that control was tightening over social networks (Factcheck, 2019a). • A message claimed that people who worked from 1991-2018 were receiving 560,000 tenge ($1,475) by the State Social Insurance Fund. The Fund’s official website issued a statement denying this information (Factcheck, 2018c). • In February 2020, ethnic clashes resulting in 10 deaths were reportedly spurred by rumours and videos on WhatsApp. Ethnic Kazakhs clashed with Dungans, a Muslim group of Chinese origin, in south-Eastern Kazakhstan. A video of three unarmed Dungans attacking Kazakh police was posted by witnesses and went viral on social media, including WhatsApp (Radio Free Europe, 2020). President Tokayev instructed security agencies to prosecute those sending hate speech, provocative rumours, and disinformation (BBC, 2020). 224