A Facebook start page is shown on a smartphone in Surfside, Florida.
Accounts linked to Pakistani military employees were also removed.
Facebook on Monday said 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.
Facebook has removed 103 pages, groups and accounts that were part of a network linked to employees of Pakistan military's public relations arm.
The 24 pages, 57 accounts and 7 groups removed on Facebook had more than 2.8 million followers. An additional 15 Instagram accounts were also removed.
According to the statement, these pages and accounts removed from Facebook and Instagram spread information about Pakistani politics and political leaders, the Indian government and the Pakistani military.
“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” Mr. Gleicher said.
The ISPR did not respond to requests for its comments.
Facebook's announcement comes at a time when it has been facing increasing pressure across the world over the use of its platforms by politically aligned groups, many of which conceal their true identity.
Last week, Facebook removed a social media network in the Philippines and took the unusual step of linking it to a businessman who said he had managed the president's online election campaign in 2016. It has taken similar actions recently against accounts in Russia and Iran.
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