The FB also said they have removed 321 Facebook pages and accounts in India that broke the firm’s rules against spam.
TIA WEB DESK
Facebook today said that it has removed 687 pages and accounts linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of Congress party citing “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. Additionally, it also removed 15 pages, groups and account associated with Indian IT firm, Silver Touch, for the same reason.
The social media network also said they have removed 321 Facebook pages and accounts in India that broke the firm’s rules against spam.
‘Coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ is when groups or people on the Facebook work together to mislead users about who they are and what they are doing. “When we take down one of these networks, it is because of their deceptive behaviour and not because of the content they are sharing. The post itself may not be false and may not go against our community standards,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy explained in a video post on the company’s website.
Talking about the 687 Facebook pages and accounts removed, he said in a blogpost, “The individuals behind this activity used fake accounts, the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by our automated systems, and joined various Groups to disseminate their content and increase engagement on their own Pages.”
The Page admins and account owners, he said, typically posted about local news and political issues, including topics such as the upcoming elections, candidate views, the Congress party, and criticism of political opponents including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “While the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC (Indian National Congress)IT Cell,” he said.
He added that the 138 pages and 569 accounts removed had spent around $39,000 for ads on Facebook, paid for in Indian rupees. The first ad ran in August 2014 and the most recent one in March 2019.
On the removal of accounts and pages linked to Silver Touch, the company said, “A small number of Page admins and account owners used a combination of authentic and fake accounts to share their content across a variety of Pages.” They posted about local news and political events, including topics like the Indian government, the upcoming elections, the BJP, and alleged misconduct of political opponents including the Congress.
It added that the one page, 12 Facebook accounts, one Group, and one Instagram account spent about $70,000 on ads on Facebook, paid for in Indian rupees. The first ad ran in June 2014 and the most recent ad ran in Feb 2019.