Facebook Removes 687 Pages Linked To Congress IT cell

Social media platform Facebook has deleted 687 pages which are reportedly linked to Congress party. The move came days before the general elections in India. The 2019 General Elections will be held from April 11 to May 19 in seven phases.

According to reports, Facebook found these pages were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Congress party. Citing reasons, Facebook said that they have removed these pages not on the basis of contents, fake news but for “inauthentic behaviour” and for pushing spam.

Speaking about Congress pages that were removed, Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher told reporters that Facebook has removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts – the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by its automated systems – that engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” in India and were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC).

“The individuals behind this activity used a combination of authentic and fake accounts to disseminate content across a variety of pages and groups,” Nathaniel Gleicher said in a statement.

“They frequently posted about local and political news, including topics like the upcoming elections, candidate updates and views, alleged misconduct of political opponents, and controversial events that were purported to occur during previous administrations,” he said.

“When we remove one of these networks, the reason we remove them is because of their coordinated inauthentic behaviour, that they are using network of fake accounts to conceal their identity….to mislead who’s behind them,” Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher said, according to PTI.

The social media firm said that the pages and accounts typically posted about local news and political matters, “including topics like coming polls, candidate views, the Indian National Congress and criticism of political opponents including the Bharatiya Janata Party”, ANI reported.

“We are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Gleicher said.

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