Facebook removes many pages in India ahead of polls

CHANDIGARH, India

Facebook on Monday said it has removed 687 Facebook pages and accounts allegedly linked to India’s main opposition Congress party.

The move came days before the start of election in the country.

“We removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts — the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by our automated systems — that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior in India and were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC),” Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook, said in a statement.

“The Page admins and account owners typically posted 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),” the statement added.

Meanwhile, the opposition party clarified that none of its official pages were taken down.

“We are awaiting a response from Facebook to provide us a list of all pages/accounts that they have taken down,” the party said in a Twitter post.

The general election in India which will be held in seven stages is starting on April 11.

Meanwhile, the social media giant also removed 103 pages, accounts and groups “for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior” on Facebook and Instagram as part of a network that originated in Pakistan.

“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that it was linked to employees of the ISPR (Inter-Service Public Relations) of the Pakistani military,” the statement said.

The ISPR officials were not available for comment.

* Aamir Latif in Karachi contributed to this story