“The reason we removed them is coordinated inauthentic behaviour,” Facebook’s Nathaniel Gleicher said.
Social media giant Facebook on Monday said that it has removed 687 pages and accounts linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Congress party as it cracks down on fake accounts and spam ahead of national elections.
It also said that these accounts were part of a coordinated network and were removed not based on content or fake news but for “inauthentic behaviour” and for pushing spam.
However, media agencies couldn’t obtain immediate comments from the Congress.
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).
“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. That’s the basic reason for removal,” he told reporters.
He asserted that the removal was not based on the content that was shared by these pages and groups. “We are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people. We’re taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted,” Mr Gleicher added.
Talking about the steps taken post the removal, Mr Gleicher said: “We have reached out to the INC to educate them about what we have seen and answer questions they have. We have also reached out to policy makers and government to ensure that they understand the types of behaviour we are seeing and what we are learning”.
“While the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC IT Cell,” Mr Gleicher said.
Stay tuned for more updates!
