Egyptian presidential candidate’s supporters flood Obama’s Facebook page with thousands of comments

US President, Barack Obama’s social media profiles often find themselves becoming a venting ground of sorts – whether in relation to local or foreign affairs – and today is no different. A group of Egyptian Facebook users are flooding Obama’s latest posts with  thousands of negative comments.

As Egypt gears up for its first presidential elections since the fall of Hosny Mubarak in February last year, one presidential candidate has found himself the centre of controversy. Conservative Islamic candidate Hazem Abu Ismail may face disqualification due to the fact that his mother was a dual American citizen.

Under current Egyptian law, presidential candidates’ parents cannot hold dual nationality. While the candidate’s mother’s name appears on California’s voter registration list, Abu Ismail’s campaign has denied the allegations.

While Abu Ismail’s anti-American supporters took to the streets, protesting in Tahrir Square on Friday, calling the story a conspiracy, they have taken up a second form of protest this morning – a digital kind taking place on Facebook.

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Abu Ismail’s supporters have logged onto Barack Obama’s official Facebook page and are leaving comment after comment, in both English and Arabic, criticizing the US president, and blaming the US for their candidate’s uncertain fate.

The posts, coming in at as many as 10 to 15 per minute, accuse the US government of interfering in local affairs, claiming that the story has been fabricated to disqualify a popular candidate.

One post reads:

“Using Fraud, Falsification and faking American Nationality for political reasons only means = Your governments are turning to another Middle East Corrupted Regime! [sic]”

This is not the first time we’ve seen one of Obama’s social media profiles flooded with comments from another country.

In February, hundreds of comments, made in both English and Chinese, appeared on Obama’s Google+ page, after the social network was unblocked in China.