Facebook removes 687 Pages ahead of India's elections
Facebook has removed 687 Pages and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior in India ahead of the elections.
The individuals behind accounts and Pages used fake accounts to post about local news and political issues.
The Pages were linked to individuals in an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC). According to the tech giant, they used fake accounts to post about local news and political issues, including topics like the upcoming elections, candidate views, the INC and criticism of political opponents including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In addition, they joined various Groups to disseminate their content and increase engagement on their own Pages. While those behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, Facebook learned that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC IT Cell.
Facebook also removed 15 Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram in India.
It 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, and 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 INC.
Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that this activity was linked to individuals associated with an Indian IT firm, Silver Touch.
Facebook has been putting in a hard shift to ensure that no country or individual will be able to influence the political campaigning in Asia Pacific countries to avoid similar situations of alleged Russian interference through social media in the US and UK.
It will place electoral ads in a searchable online library in India as an additional layer of defense to prevent foreign interference and make political and issue advertising more transparent.
At the start of 2019, the tech giant purged 289 pages sponsored by Kremlin media brand Sputnik.