Facebook removes 687 pages, accounts linked to Congress IT cell ahead of 2019 polls

In an attempt to tackle fake news and contain the spread of it, social media giant Facebook has deactivated 687 pages from the site which were linked to the Congress IT cell.

The company has said that these pages, which have been removed, usually posted about local news and political issues, regarding the candidates and veiled attack on the Opposition parties including the BJP.

In a statement, the Facebook has said, “The Page admins&account owners typically posted about local news&political issues, incl topics like coming polls,candidate views, the INC& criticism of political opponents including BJP. Our review found that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC IT Cell.”

The social media giant earlier announced that “We removed 687 Facebook Pages & accounts-the majority of which had already been detected&suspended by our automated systems-that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior in India &were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress.”

The users and both, Congress and BJP, have earlier complained about the Twitter blocking and removing users/fan page who were either pro right-wing or anti-Modi. The Twitter administration was called down by a Parliamentary committee to detail about the incident.

The Facebook further added that “The individuals behind this activity used fake accounts to operate military fan Pages; general Pakistani interest Pages; Kashmir community Pages.Our investigation found that it was linked to employees of the ISPR (Inter-Service Public Relations) of Pakistani military.”

The elections in India is schedule to begin from April 11 and the results will be declared on May 23.

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