Facebook Launches ‘Surgical Strike’, Pages of BJP, Congress Hit

Facebook said all the accounts were removed for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”.

New Delhi: Social media giant launched a surgical strike against fake news and propaganda by pulling down nearly 700 pages and accounts  linked to “individuals associated with the IT cell of Congress” and 15 pages, groups and accounts that were spreading pro-BJP information.

Facebook said all the accounts were removed not for political content but “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, meaning these were fake accounts used to mislead and manipulate people.

The move was part of Facebook’s efforts to stop the spread of misinformation especially ahead of the elections.

But the BJP seems to have taken a bigger hit in terms of followers. While the number of Congress pages taken down was higher, those pages had only 2 lakh followers, said Facebook. In contrast, the pro-BJP content — 1 Page, 12 Facebook accounts, 1 Group and 1 Instagram account — had over 26 lakh followers.

Also, more money was spent on the pro BJP pages that were taken down. While the pro-Congress pages involved an expenditure of $39,000 (close to 27 lakhs) in spending on Facebook ads since August 2014, the corresponding amount for the pro-BJP pages were $70,000 (close to 50 lakhs).

“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 said.

They were using both authentic and fake accounts to share content about “local news and political events”. There were posts on government action, “the upcoming elections, the BJP and alleged misconduct of political opponents, including the INC,” Facebook said.

While the Congress tweeted, saying no official page was taken down, the BJP is yet to respond.

In a tweet, the Congress said: This is to clarify no official pages run by INC have been taken down. Additionally, all pages run by our verified volunteers are also unaffected. 

In the mean time, we are awaiting a response from Facebook to provide us a list of all pages/accounts that they have taken down.

Along with WhatsApp, the social media giant has been under government pressure to stop the spread of fake news and anything that might influence the country’s electoral process.