Numerous pay-for-service social media accounts on Friday ran a parallel campaign to bury FIJ’s investigation into unwholesome business practices by Landwey Investment Limited, a Lagos-based real estate business that took funds from multiple clients without delivering housing.

An investigative report by FIJ had detailed Landwey’s multiple failed multimillion-naira real-estate schemes, and its fraudulent marketing strategies which ensnared numerous victims.

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‘Landwey, Money Heist’: A Real Estate Company With Access To Power Is Getting Away With Daylight Ponzi was published at about 6:30am on Friday. A few hours later, #LandWey topped the trends table on microblogging platform Twitter, for Nigeria.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN — AND WHY?

A click on the Landwey hashtag led to numerous tweets from Twitter handles known for running paid advertising. The quantity of pro-Landwey tweets peaked just around 9 am. FIJ observed that most of the tweets were pleas for favours and bank cash transfers punctuated with the Landwey hashtag. Some Twitter handles had ordered the tweets to affect the trends on the microblogging platform.

Trends are very important variables on social media and Twitter makes it easier for users to dictate trends. So, social media influencers make it their job to exploit the trends table to make users see only what they want the users to see.

According to Twitter, “Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location. This algorithm identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter.”

To put it simply, social media figures can influence a massive pool of users and followers to tweet one keyword several thousand times so that the keyword rises on the trends table merely for being repeated several times.

In this case, influencers such as Dami Adenuga asked their followers to say what they wanted in a lottery that could land them cash gifts. All they had to do was include the Landwey hashtag or ‘Landwey’ as a keyword in every tweet. This way, several thousand tweets appeared under Dami Adenuga’s and similar influencers’ tweets with the Landwey hashtag.

The large pool of responses asking for help and cash gifts with the Landwey hashtag was one part of the paid influencers’ game. A second part of the influencers’ strategy was the intermittent tweeting and re-tweeting of positive content about Landwey, using the Landwey hashtag.

Any Twitter user who clicked on the Landwey hashtag before noon on Friday could not easily find FIJ’s report — the report was buried in the multitude of pleas for cash gifts and eulogies tweeted about Landwey. That multitude of tweets was a smokescreen for potential readers of FIJ’s investigative report on Landwey.

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That most of the positive comments came from Twitter accounts used for brand promotion, social media marketing and advertisement was no surprise. Twitter accounts similar to Dami Adenuga’s receive money or incentives from sponsors to make a particular keyword or narrative popular for some time online.

Dami Adenuga and a number of social media influencers have since deleted their tweets asking tweeps to tweet a certain way for Landwey, but the responses remain.

Most of the tweets with the Landwey hashtag did not respond to the substance of FIJ’s investigation. The #Landwey tweets were positive printouts reproduced and re-tweeted word-for-word in a copy-and-paste manner.

Amplifying this because these #LandWey folks have hired influences to drown this story out today.

LandWey is a ponzi scheme! https://t.co/M2YqzzckeK

— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) June 30, 2023

The initial attempt by the paid social media influencers might have prevented some Nigerians from finding FIJ’s report on Landwey but a few notable accounts have pointed out Landwey’s social media warfare against the story.

FIJ’s story would eventually generate the readership it deserved, with many Twitter users commenting on the multiple fraud in the real estate industry in general, investigative journalist David Hundeyin writing: “Amplifying this because these #LandWey folks have hired influences to drown this story out today. LandWey is a ponzi scheme!”